Daily Word

Abundant Life is Jesus Himself: "the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep."

So being Jesus´ "sheep" means sharing His Life!

But only He who loses his own life will find that life.

When you give yourself completely to Jesus, He gives Himself entirely to you! Then you will "know" Him and "hear" his voice!

The only way we can know Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is the way He knows His Father: in a deep, personal spirit-to-spirit relationship.

To bring us into this reality Jesus had to "lay down His life" to break another spirit relationship: the hold of "the thief" over our lives.

Read the whole teaching of Jesus about the Good Shepherd in John 10:11-18, 27-30. Again and again He repeats that He "lays down His life for the sheep": to "give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand."

"Eternal Life" is an unbroken flow of Divine Life. This was the Life Jesus lived in a deep, intimate union with his Father: "I and the Father are one."

Nothing separated them (Jesus had no plans, purposes or goals of His own), but there was total openness and consensus: the Father knew the son completely and the Son the Father.

Jesus listened to what the Father wanted and did exactly what He said. The Father gave Himself fully to the Son and the Son gave His all back to the Father: "All things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine" (Jn.17:10).

This is the World of the Spiritual Reality: there is complete Unity and because of that abundant Life.

It is kind of Life that the Good Shepherd calls you into.

He leads you deeper and deeper into the Spiritual Reality as you listen to His voice and follow Him. The more you listen to His voice and the closer you follow Him, the better you will know Him and the deeper the union between you and your Shepherd will become: "I know my own and My own know Me."

In this deep union with the Shepherd you find the abundant Life!