Overflow!
How do you win in life? I remember playing “The Game of Life” with our kids. You roll a dice to get a baby or a job. If only it was that easy.
The apostle Paul offers us a counterintuitive way not just to win, but to reign in life. He says that if death reigned through the sin of one man (Adam), how much more will those who receive God’s ABUNDANT provision of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ? (Romans 5:17)
Oh I love this! We reign in life not by striving, not by clambering over others, but by receiving and giving, by living in the overflow of God’s abundant grace. Instead of Hasbro’s “Your life, your way”, it’s God’s life, give it away!”
This week I read that God is not self-enclosed; turned inward. God overflows and calls us to do the same. Jesus says, “I came to give life in abundance” (John 10:10); this is a life where we give and God gives back to us, pressed down and running over – overflowing (Luke 6:38).
Does that mean fat bank balances and shiny new cars? It’s not that kind of overflow. I searched for the words ‘abundance’ and ‘overflow’ in Scripture and it struck me that both words shine out of Paul’s epistles that are set in a time of poverty and persecution. In one breath, Paul talks of the Cross and laying down our lives and in the next, of lives that overflow with comfort (2 Cor 1:5), joy (2 Cor 8:2), thankfulness (Col 2:7) and hope (Rom 15:13).
On Saturday, I had the huge privilege of leading someone to Jesus but could absolutely see that the context was the overflow of the love and prayers of others that had brought her to the meeting where I was speaking. I think it’s God’s plan that we are all either giving or receiving as we live in the overflow.
If you read this and feel more like your heart resembles a scantily filled cost of living crisis supermarket shelf, and that you are far from overflowing, in desperate need of comfort and joy, even tempted to despair then be encouraged, because Jesus said that the thirsty and hungry are blessed. That’s who he came to fill.
Nothing that we face is too difficult for God,
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13
