Life's Better

"Life's better when there's nothing to stop you"

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"I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."

Jesus - John 10.10

Sometimes you are listening to the radio, watching tv or you see some slogan on a t shirt and you think, "That sounds so good, so in tune with our culture's world view and yet it's total nonsense". 

I had that moment when one of my sons was playing music on the free Spotify app (quite a long story behind this about how Spotify is rubbish for young people under 18 whose parents are too stingy to buy a family account, but pretend that it's not because they are stingy but because they are too busy giving them lifts, washing up after them etc. to spend their time listening to music.)

The adverts came up, including one for Spotify premium with the strap line above. At the time we were in the car and my son said, "Life's better when there's nothing to stop you... like traffic laws or policemen." In a moment of insight (obviously genetically inherited) he hit the nail on the head. The Spotify strapline is nonsense. 

In fact thinking about it a bit more deeply, you realise that the truth is, "Life's Hell when there's nothing to stop you". When there are no rules, no restrictions, things become awful really quickly.

The real way of Life becoming better is found not in the Spotify advert, but in John 10.10. The problem with this verse though, is that it is often understood as if it were the Spotify advert. The logic goes something like this: 

• My Life will be better if I am free to do 'x'; 
• Jesus has promised me fullness of life;
• Therefore Jesus wants me to do 'x'
• If I then discover that the Bible says I shouldn't do 'x', it can't apply to me because that would be restrictive and so rob me of fullness of life and Jesus doesn't want that.

But this logic loses the context of what Jesus is saying in John 10.10. The context is that of the shepherd with the sheep. The choice is not between following the thief or going off on our own; the choice is between following the thief to loss and destruction or following the shepherd to fullness of life.

A sheep does not have fullness of life by doing what it wants to do with nothing to stop it. In another passage (Luke 11) we meet another sheep. It wanted to have nothing stopping it and so it stopped allowing the shepherd to show it where to go and ended up lost, facing death, and in need of rescue.

No, "Life is Better" is found in choosing well what will stop you from doing what will harm you. It is found in listening to the voice of the Good Shepherd - John 10.16. So the next time Jesus stops you doing something, by speaking to you through his word - Rejoice - because you are being led in the way of fullness of life.

 "Life's Better when the Good Shepherd stops you."