Recently this Scripture passage spoke again to me. “I have come so that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” It dawned on me again, how Jesus always wants us to have the best of everything as we live our lives on a daily basis. It is as if Jesus is saying “Only do it if you can give it your best shot and I will help you. I’ll make it the fullest life possible” Jesus assists us in living life to the fullest in three different ways. First, Jesus takes away the burden of sin. Secondly, He shows us how much God the Father truly loves us, which gives hope, and thirdly Jesus invites us to follow him all the way home to His Father’s house. When we understand what these three things really mean for our salvation, we are living life to the fullest.

We start believing this in this home where we are right now. From here we travel our life’s journey until arriving at our true home in heaven. Jesus wants our journey to be about changing, transforming, becoming more than we are at any given moment.

If we stay still on our journey, we will not have abundance only inertia. For instance if we see our fellow travelers as strangers, and make no attempt to know, understand or love them, then we have not moved. We may be taking external steps, but there is not movement in our hearts.

To live life to the fullest we need to see God in others, even those we think may be “unclean.” We have to remember that our fellow pilgrims are made in God’s image and likeness and not ours. This is a difficult lesson to learn, but it is not a suggestion, Jesus commands us. St John The Evangelist wrote “If we say we love God and hate our neighbor. We are liars.” That’s definitely strong wording from an unusually loving and compassionate disciple.

Jesus came that we have life to the fullest. It is a free gift, freely given; we simply have to choose to go in that direction. Remember if we do it one day at a time and if we do it each day of our journey, then on our last day we will have done it for a lifetime. And through it all, we will have had life to the fullest. Isn’t today a wonderful day to begin living life to the fullest? Alleluia!