As we walk through the Christian year together, each season will be accompanied by a guiding question – a question to wrestle with, pray through, and bring to God. During the season of Easter, as we celebrate and practice resurrection, we’re asking together: “What are we seeing come alive?”

Jesus promises a life of abundance. While some connect this word to money and resources, Jesus makes this promise to a people who most likely had neither. When you think of abundance through the lens of Jesus, what comes to mind?

Learning to discern and follow the voice of the Spirit is an integral part of our discipleship. Is there some part of you life that you’re seeking God’s voice in right now? Where do you need clarity and direction? 

Very truly I tell you Pharisees…

John 10:10a NIV

What sorrow awaits you shepherds who feed yourselves instead of your flocks. Shouldn’t shepherds feed their sheep? You drink the milk, wear the wool, and butcher the best animals, but you let your flocks starve. You have not taken care of the weak. You have not tended the sick or bound up the injured. You have not gone looking for those who have wandered away and are lost. Instead, you have ruled them with harshness and cruelty.

Ezekiel 34:2b-4 NIV

Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.

John 10:1-5 NIV

Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture.

John 10:7-9 NIV

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

John 10:10 NRSVUE

“Abundant life is not ease. It is not constant happiness. It is not success with a spiritual label. It is something deeper. Abundant life is life that can still breathe under pressure. Life that is not collapsing inward. Life that is not driven by fear, even when fear is present. Life that can tell the truth. Receive love. Remain open. Life as it is meant to be. Abundant life is a fully human life.”

— Paul Dazet, “So Many Voices. So Little Peace.”

We don’t stumble our way into abundance. We are led there.

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

John 10:27 NIV

The enemy’s strategy is to look and sound like the shepherd.

How do we discern the voice of God?

God’s voice does not speak words of condemnation.

He calls his own sheep by name…

John 10:3b NIV

God’s voice shouldn’t always agree with you.

“In the book of Acts, the fundamental sign of the Spirit is that people are asked to do what they don’t want to do.”

— Willie James Jennings, Acts

God’s voice does not contradict scripture.

God’s voice does not contradict the character of Christ.

God’s voice is confirmed and corrected in community.

Sometimes we’re wrong.

Holy Spirit, speak to me.