ACCEPT JESUS AND YOU WILL HAVE
PROSPERITY AND NO PROBLEMS IN LIFE?
By John Rhinehart
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. Jn 10:10
Another abused verse in Scriptures. Used by many to teach that once your saved you’ll have everything in life; be prosperous; no problems in life and so on. Yet the Scriptures teach no such thing in fact Jesus makes is clear that things will not be ‘just perfect.’
"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." Jn 16:33
And Paul states:
For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. 1Cor 11:29, 30
James:
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. Jas 4:1-4
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Ja 1:2,3
Hebrews:
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? Heb 12:7
And yet will continue to hear, “Jesus came to give you life and more abundantly.” So what then is 10:10 all about?
Again, to understand this, we must stay in the context of what Jesus is telling which is from verse one to verse eighteen. As verse 6 tells us, that Jesus used a figure of speech in verses 1-5, but they, the Pharisees (9:40) did not understand what he was telling them.
Jesus then tells them that he is the only way to heaven (v7, 9) and all those who came before me were only thieves and robbers (v8). That those ‘sheep’ that entered by the gate (Jesus, v7, 9) will not listen to the thieves and robbers (v8b). The thieves and robbers comes only to steal and kill and destroy (v10a). What are these thieves and robbers attempting to do? Become false Christ’s (Pharisees, also read Mat 23). They were robbing and misleading the Jews into false messiah’s (Pharisees). These false messiah, known as ‘hired hand’ is not the shepherd that owns the sheep (v12). For when the wolf comes (other gentiles) he abandons the seep and runs away (13). Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it (gentile rulers as the religious rulers flee leaving its people to scatter). These false messiahs run away because they don’t care about the people that they are to watch. (v13)
Jesus then informs the Pharisees that he (Jesus) is the good shepherd (the one they wanted to be) and that he knows his sheep and his sheep will accept him (v14, disciples and other Jews). Then Jesus must have really confused the Pharisees when he told them,
I have other sheep (gentiles) that are not of this sheep pen (House of Israel). I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. (v16)(cp Eph 4:3-6)
Thus, we can now understand the meaning, within the context of this chapter of 10, of ‘I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.’ Jesus came that men might have ‘life’, to live, not as one that is blind or dead (Jn 9:35-41).
“And in him was life, and that life was the light of men.” Jn 1:4
"He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life." 1Jn 5:12
I have come to give my sheep, life again and find pasture to feed on the truth (have it to the full, (v10)), (v9b). Jesus did not claim that his sheep will be ‘super prosperous.” But that they will now know the truth as they hear his voice, i.e. the Word of God. For a full study on this verse, John 10:10, one will need to read Jn 9-10:21.
Now some have used verse 10 to interject Satan, mission to destroy, into it as the ‘thief.” All those who do this, changes the Word, Pr 30:5,6. Jesus was addressing the Pharisee’s question (9:40). The ‘thief’ was the Pharisees and not Satan. As man continues to attribute more to Satan than should be, man will continue to relive himself of the accountability that he is the cause and not always Satan—“but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed” Jam 1:14.
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