God Is Life

I sit here overwhelmed. I had planned out this long discourse defending my heavenly Father (which grew far too long). Those never work out for me. Instead, now I’m reduced to a fifty-year-old housewife-slash-writer and a lot of tears. Who am I really? The daughter of a loving couple who poured Christ into me. A granddaughter who misses her grandparents painfully every single day. The mother of a sweet, wonderful daughter who I adore. A dog mom. A fish mom (is that a thing?).

But perhaps greater than all of those, I am a daughter of the Most High God. He has chosen me as an instrument of His work, and I am profoundly humbled by it. “He teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight,” it says in Psalm 144:1. Words are weapons, contrary the old children’s nursery rhyme about sticks and stones, and He’s given me words to speak today that I’m unsure I can speak clearly.

Every time I think I know what to say, He gives me something new that I just can’t express fully. In my head, it’s huge, larger than life, but on paper it seems so paltry. How do I tell you how amazing He is within a few words? How do I encapsulate thousands of years of Scripture into one moment that touches your heart and makes you rethink … EVERYTHING.

Because yesterday morning, Holy Spirit woke me up quoting John 10:10, quoting and requoting, rewording, repeating. Over and over again. “I came to give abundant LIFE. I am abundant LIFE. I gave life more abundantly.” He was forceful and insistent. He wanted me to KNOW because He wanted YOU to KNOW. It’s imperative.

The truth is, I’ve been seeing the numbers 10:10 for days. You might remember me mentioning the numbers before. I still see 911, and every time, it warns me of an upcoming event. In any case, now He’s added 10:10 to the numbers list. And just so you see how uncanny these are, when I made my older dog a vet appointment yesterday, they set it for Tuesday at 10:10. I told my dear friend that afterward, and she said, “My birthday is 10/10.” You can’t make this stuff up.

John 10:10 says, “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

We quote this verse a lot without really having any revelation of it. After Holy Spirit spoke it to me, repeating and rephrasing it as He did, it was like every reference to LIFE in the Bible dumped on me at once. From Genesis to Revelation, I saw how many times He’s said, “I am LIFE.” It’s everywhere, yet we haven’t seen it at all.

Most of Christendom still blames Him for every DEATH event that happens. He’s the cause of bad storms, bad government, so-and-so’s illness, the car accident your brother was involved in. Even the death of the dog is somehow God’s fault, and we exist only to survive suffering.

BUT THIS IS SO WRONG!

How do I make this clear enough? Even now, I falter.

HE IS LIFE AND LIFE MORE ABUNDANTLY. He is not the thief. He does not do the work of the thief. He does not consult the thief or use the thief to meet His ends. He is ALMIGHTY GOD. There is none above Him. (Heb 6:13) He’s the top of the mountain, the HIGHEST POINT, the THRONE ABOVE ALL, KING OF KINGS, and LORD OF LORDS. He needs no aid from the enemy. That makes Him weak.

When the thief … he’s nothing. Nothing at all. God dealt with him, made a whole show of him in front of all the heavens and stripped him of his power and authority. (Col 2:15; Lk 10:19) Why would He do that then use him for anything?

God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) are ETERNAL LIFE. They are LIFE!

You’re still not hearing me, so here’s a few references.

• Elohim breathed into man the BREATH OF LIFE. (Ge 2:7)
• Man became a LIVING SOUL. (Ge 2:7)
• In the Garden of Eden He placed the TREE OF LIFE. (Ge 2:9)
• Noah took onto the ark, all flesh that contained the BREATH OF LIFE. (Ge 7:15)
• The LIFE OF THE FLESH is in the blood. (Lev 17:11)
• The Israelites were told to CHOOSE LIFE. (Deut 30:15, 19-20)
• The river flowing from the temple in Ezekiel’s vision GAVE LIFE to dead waters. (Ez 47:9)
• Jesus is the LIFE and the LIGHT. (Jn 1:4)
• For God so loved the world, that He gave His Son to bring EVERLASTING LIFE. (Jn 3:16)
• Jesus is LIVING WATER. (Jn 4:10)
• Out of our bellies flows RIVERS OF LIVING WATER. (Jn 7:38)
• Jesus came to give ABUNDANT LIFE. (Jn 10:10)
• God gives to all things LIFE and BREATH. (Act 17:25)
• Holy Spirit is the SPIRIT OF LIFE. (Rm 8:2)
• We are LIVELY STONES. (1Pe 2:5)
• His divine power (Holy Spirit) has given us all things that pertain TO LIFE. (2Pe 1:3)
• The apostle John saw the LAMB’S BOOK OF LIFE. (Rev 20:12)
• The apostle John saw flowing from the throne, a RIVER OF LIFE. (Rev 22:1)

God is LIFE. That is WHO HE IS and WHAT HE IS. Abundant, eternal, everlasting, merciful LIFE.

Even the most horrible person breathes because God’s LIFE is in Him. It is God’s mercy that He can wake up and go about his day. Now, stop yourself right there. Because that thought you just had, where God is an arrogant God, proud of this truth. That’s wrong. He knows WHO HE IS. Don’t misunderstand me. But HE IS LOVE. HE IS MERCY. HE IS LIFE. (1Jn 4:8; Eph 2:4) Those are WHAT HE IS and WHO HE IS. He cannot be anything else.

HE IS LIGHT, so He CANNOT BE DARKNESS. The Bible is definitive about this.

“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that GOD IS LIGHT, and IN HIM IS NO DARKNESS AT ALL.” (1Jn 1:5)

THERE IS NO DARKNESS IN HIM. This means there’s no DEATH in Him either because death and darkness go together. Matthew 4:16 says, “The people which sat IN DARKNESS saw GREAT LIGHT; and to them which sat in the REGION AND SHADOW OF DEATH LIGHT IS SPRUNG up.” Where there is darkness, there is death, but God sent the LIGHT and LIFE to destroy the works of darkness. (Rm 13:12)

Absence of DEATH is God’s entire goal for creation. It is what He set out to do from the moment Adam sinned. Adam and Eve’s sins brought death into the world. Jesus came to earth to defeat it, and one day, it will be gone forever. We read this in Revelation 21:4.

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and THERE SHALL BE NO MORE DEATH, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)

There shall be NO MORE DEATH because in HIM IS NO DEATH. If He is LIGHT and LIFE, then He is not darkness or death.

IN GOD IS LIFE, AND IN HIM IS NO DEATH AT ALL. (1Jn 1:5, rephrased)

None. And frankly, He’s tired of being blamed for it. He’s tired of being tied to it. He isn’t split on the issue. He isn’t confused. (1Cor 14:33) He isn’t wishy-washy and one minute, He’s okay with you, but the next, “Oh, maybe she needs to learn to be patient, so ZAP.” Jesus Himself stated that satan could not fight against satan or his kingdom would collapse. If this is true about the devil, then it’s true about God. (Mt 12:26)

My wonderful heavenly Father HAS NO DEATH IN HIM.

Now, death is the absence of LIFE, so where death is, LIFE isn’t, and there are many factors involved in why death happens, too many for this one post. But I want to leave you with two important truths.

First, God will never go against any of the laws He’s set into motion. He is sovereign, yes, but He is sovereign to His Word. He never breaks a promise. He is sovereign to His character as well. He is faithful to be who He has always been. (Deut 7:9; 1Cor 1:9)

He said in Genesis that what you plant is what you will harvest. (Ge 8:22) This means, a person unrepentant of his or her sins will reap the consequences of them. It is not that LIFE IN GOD is not available, it is not that HE DOESN’T WANT THEM TO REPENT, He LONGS for REPENTANCE because He sees everyone as they could be. He is FULL OF GRACE. But the devil is real and busy at his job deceiving people. (Jn 8:44; Lk 5:32; Tit 2:11)

Second, I live in a continual state of “there’s something I don’t know yet.” If I don’t understand something in Scripture, then I know it isn’t God that is in error, it’s me. This will save you a lot of mental turmoil. Knowing I don’t always know relieves me of a huge burden. And it keeps me seeking Him. It is by continually seeking that He reveals His truth. (Mt 7:7)

It’s about creating a relationship with Him, and that is the heart of this post. I seek the GOD OF ABUNDANT LIFE, and because I have developed a relationship, because I give Him time to speak as He wants to speak, and because I honor His words, He shares Himself with me. I may never fully understand this, but my gratitude for it is beyond words. He saw me, as far down as I was, as far away as I was, and lifted me up to stand before Him.

Because He could. Because He loved. Because HE LIVES.


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.feelgoodromance.com
www.suzannedwilliams.com