Bible as Guide for Abundant Life
Marshall Hayden reflects on how the Bible confirmed, instructed, and shaped the direction of his life. Rather than describing a dramatic redirection, he testifies to the steady influence of Scripture, family faith, and the promise of abundant life in Christ.
- The essay opens Christian Standard’s 2011 series “The Bible, My Guide.”
- Hayden describes how his parents’ trust in Scripture shaped his understanding of life and discipleship.
- John 10:10 stands at the center of his reflection on abundant life now and in eternity.
(This essay is the first in a series called “The Bible, My Guide” that will appear throughout 2011. In it, Christian leaders will present testimonies about how the Bible has changed them. This essay, and all subsequent ones in this series, may be accessed by clicking on “The Bible, My Guide” in the drop down menu under “Features” on the home page.)
By Marshall Hayden
The Power of a Sermon Seen
I didn’t understand the TV commercial the first time or two. But now every time I see it I get a warm feeling the advertiser no doubt wanted to plant in my subconscious. When we understand what is happening, we can almost read the minds of the commercial’s participants.
A woman reaches out to stop a man who unknowingly almost steps into a busy street—a kindness that averts a potential tragedy. Then a young man who saw that hurries to give a hand to a mother trying to manage a child in a stroller, who in turn is watched by a third person. Other sequences follow, with each observed kindness motivating a good deed to someone else.
It’s a bit painful for a preacher to say, but there is a good deal of truth in the poem that starts, “I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day.” What we watch has a profound influence on what we do.
A series of testimonies starting today in Christian Standard about the Bible’s impact on one person’s life will represent a similar kind of power and blessing at work in many lives. The editor asked, “How has the Bible changed the direction of your life?”
“It hasn’t,” was my immediate reaction. In my case, the Bible has confirmed, instructed, and shaped the direction of my life. It has given definition, explanation, and encouragement to what I watched at work from my earliest years.
A Life Shaped by Scripture
My parents were followers of Jesus. They believed the Bible was the Word of God. They knew it was absolutely dependable as a guide for them and their family. Their lives and choices were shaped by the words of Jesus and those who followed him, and by the authority of the Bible’s record of God’s will and God’s law.
It was easy to see the contrast between our family’s life and that of so many others we watched, some from a distance and some from up close. We experienced much more peace than distress, joy even during seasons of sadness, hope and not despair, simplicity and not duplicity, purpose rather than confusion, and a commitment to purity.
None of that came from worldly wealth. Our circumstances were modest. Those good qualities and circumstances came from pursuing the “prize to which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” And I met and married a woman whose family believed and lived by the same principles and followed the same shepherd.
Abundant Life in Christ
Some place along the way I adopted a favorite verse of Scripture, though I can’t put a finger on just when that was. It is a sentence in John’s Gospel that has (in the words of a J. B. Phillips’s book title about the Bible) a clear “ring of truth.” For many years now it has been printed on the little half-sheets of paper I use to write personal notes. Jesus is talking about being both the door to a safe place and the shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.
“I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.” That’s the New American Standard Bible’s translation of the second half of John 10:10, the verse on my note paper. “Have it to the full,” the New International Version says. The King James Version says “more abundantly.” It’s all good.
The never-ending final stanza of life will come when we have graduated from this first little bit. Then all the real tension of death will be removed by our faith that what the Bible says is true. “I go to prepare a place for you.”
John, in the Revelation, tried to describe it, but mere words failed him. In the 21st century we toss around the word awesome pretty freely; but it’s too small a word to describe Heaven.
But my favorite verse isn’t talking just about Heaven’s home. It also assures me that when I am a Jesus follower during the years in this flesh, an abundant, meaningful, effective, satisfying, valuable, and full life is my privilege. There will be pains and pressures, setbacks and slips, surprises and disappointments, very wonderful times and possibly very terrible times. But nothing can separate me from the love of God which is in Christ.
I saw that assurance lived out at home. The Bible has confirmed the rightness of that direction. And it has shaped the steps of this disciple.
Marshall Hayden recently retired from a long ministry with Worthington (Ohio) Christian Church. He is a chairman of Standard Publishing’s Publishing Committee.
