John 10:10 // Summer of Scripture

Welcome to Summer of Scripture on the Naked marriage podcast. For 66 days in a row, we are releasing a daily devotional episode for your marriage. And over these 66 days, we're going to pull out one scripture from each of the 66 books of the Bible and talk about how it applies to your marriage. So if you listen to every single one of these episodes, you're going to have a comprehensive understanding of God's plan for your marriage. We encourage you to listen to everyone. Let's dive into today's scripture.

Hey there. Welcome back to the Summer of Scripture on the Naked Marriage Podcast. Today is day 43. I can't believe it. We're in the Gospel of John. And this is one of my favorite verses. It's kind of, you know, it's a hard one to swallow, but it's a great verse because it's an enlightening verse. It lets us know, you know, even more about kind of just the spiritual warfare that we're dealing with. And that is John 10:10. It says, the thief's purpose is to steal, steal, kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life. And this is, you know, where we're talking about the thief is Satan, okay? And Jesus is saying, like, Satan, he wants to steal, kill and destroy. And I'm sorry, my Kentucky accent is a flaring when I say steal, heal and destroy, okay? But anyway, it's really hard for me to say that in a row. That devil coming after you, Dale's gonna get you, okay? But anyway, so steal, kill and destroy. And. And he says, you know, Jesus says, but my purpose is to give them, to give you, to give us a rich and satisfying life. And I love that because it's really bringing us into this picture of this spiritual warfare realm that we're dealing with all the time. And I think we wanna. We just tend to forget this as human beings. It's a little scary to think about. We don't have to be afraid because as Christians, guess what? God wins. We win. And the battle has already been won right at the cross. So we don't need to live in fear, but we do need to, with wisdom of knowing that there is this enemy out for us. Especially as Christians, we have a target on our back. He doesn't want us to follow the Lord. He doesn't want us to fulfill the purposes that God has for us. And Jesus recognizes this and is saying, like, listen, like, if you're feeling depleted, you're feeling like this force that just seems to want to pull you away from me know that that's the devil. But I am the source of life. I am the source of freedom and I want to give you a rich and satisfying life.

I love that, it's great. But the awareness part, like you said, of just knowing there is an element.

Of spiritual attack, we have experienced it.

I've totally experienced it.

I know you guys too now.

Some people just blame everything on the devil. Like, you know, they didn't put gas in their car and they blame the devil that their gas tank is on empty. And it's like a lot of it's cause and effect. But there is a definite element of spiritual warfare that we just need to be aware of. Not to freak you out again, not to repeat everything Ashley said, but this isn't talked about enough and some people talk about it too much, frankly. You just have to have a healthy awareness. But the main part of this scripture and the main part of the Bible is that Jesus is here to give us a rich and satisfying life. He wants to fill you. He wants to give you good things. And that's been a theme throughout. And I hope that the encouragement of that has taken root into your soul and that Jesus wants good things for your marriage. He wants you to have a rich and satisfying marriage, a full and abundant marriage and family. And if you don't have that right now, you can get it. You can get it. I mean, if you will do the things the scripture says to do, if you'll humble yourself, if you'll submit yourself into God's hands, if you'll commit to doing things God's way, it will create a revolution in your home.

It will. You know, God wants you to have shalom. Shalom is the Hebrew word for peace. But a greater description of the word shalom and a greater kind of definition is actually wholeness. And I love that. Because God doesn't want us to feel depleted. He doesn't do what the enemy does. He wants to fill us. Right? That God sized hole we talked about earlier this summer, he wants to fill that and give us that peace, that shalom. You know, even today in Israel, if you go to Israel, that's how they greet you is in essence saying like, have God's peace, be whole, you know, be healthy, be whole and not lacking. You know, if you look up the word shalom, it says not lack, it says lacking, actually lacking nothing.

I love that.

So when we have God's peace, shalom, we, we are not going around half hearted. We have whole hearts, full hearts and a peace that Surpasses understanding. And I just love that so much. But on the flip side of that, if you're looking up kind of an ancient lexicon of these Hebrew words, there's another word that actually uses the same ancient Hebrew word, pictures the same symbols as shalom. And that word is shalal, It's. And shalal, it stands for taking authority by destructive means. And when I learned that, I thought it was so interesting because it literally is John 10:10. The thief's purpose is to steal, kill and destroy. Taking authority by destructive means because, you know, peace is actually. When we have God's peace, it means God is breaking the authority that has been established by chaos. Okay, and who establishes chaos most of the time? Sometimes it is us. I mean, we need to take on the responsibility of human beings who do stupid stuff, right? But sometimes it enemy trying to just, you know, bring havoc to our lives and bring chaos to our lives. And God comes in the minute we pray, the minute we surrender our lives to him. It's like we are putting ourselves right back underneath his authority, you know, because God's perfect authority, he's that good shepherd that doesn't lead us astray. Whereas, you know, the enemy wants to lead us into this place of confusion, right? He's the author of confusion. You know, one descriptor is the Lord of the Flies, right? And meaning, like just distraction everywhere, just making us feel like we've lost our compass. We don't even know where we are. We don't have an awareness of even our North Star, you know, God, like, where are you, God? Like, that's what Satan wants us to be in that dynamic. And I felt that, like, going through my anxiety and depression, literally that confusion, you know, that just. I don't even understand why I'm having these thoughts. It's leading me all over the place. I have no peace in this. But I know on those really hard nights, you know, where I just felt. I felt like the anxiety coming on, maybe I had just gone through an anxiety attack. I would really, you know, John 10:10 was one of those verses that I would try to remember. Like, listen, this is. This is from the enemy. He's trying to mess with me. But God brings me wholeness. Jesus brings me wholeness. He wants me to have a rich and fulfilling life. And. And he is not the author of confusion. You know, he brings that stillness to me, that wholeness, that peace to me. And I really would cling to that. And I'm telling you that, you know, on the daily. I mean, he was My. My daily bread and still is my daily bread. But especially when you're going through those times where you do feel like I just am so out of sorts right now in my life, I feel like there's shalal all around me. Like, it's just like, oh, my gosh. It's like everything negative is trying to take, like, suck the life out of me, you know, I felt that. But. But when I would reach out to God and really focus in on his truth and recognize. Recognize what the enemy was trying to do to me for what it was and speak the name of Jesus to those forces. And this is gonna sound kind of weird to some of you, but speaking the name of Jesus out loud and say in Jesus name, stop. Okay? It says even the demons have to flee. Like, they know they're scared of Jesus. Like, even the demons know the truth of Jesus. Right? Even the negative forces of demons freaks you out. If the word demons freaks you out, call it negative forces, call it the enemy's forces, whatever. It's all the same thing. The things that are going against what God has for us. You speak the name of Jesus and I'm telling you there is power in the name of Jesus and they'll go away. You'll have that wholeness.

Power in the name of Jesus.

Yes.

And he wants to give us a full, rich, abundant, satisfying life and break the chaos the thief is trying to bring to our lives.

Exactly, man.

There's so much peace and encouragement in that. I hope that encouraged you guys. Today. Ashley has an amazing book called Peace Pirates that goes deeper into some of these themes of what Shalom really is and looks like in your life. It's a powerful book, so I encourage you to check that out. You will be encouraged by it. Well, guys, tune in tomorrow. We're in day 44 and we will be in the book of Acts.