Life-Minus is life lived by default. It is life lived without a personal relationship with the Shepherd. It is the life of the stray, the lost sheep. It is a life of great freedom to do anything one feels like doing, to think any thought one wants to think, to go anyplace that one chooses to go. It is a life of spiritual quarrel and intellectual anarchy. It is a life lived without the liberating limits of God's Word and empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

Contrast to it Life-Plus. When Jesus said, "'I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly,'" He is literally talking about the life of purpose, the life lived with positive momentum. The phrase in the Greek describes this life as "abundant life," which literally means to have a surplus, a super-abundance of something. To be a follower of Jesus, to know who He is, to repent of sin and put your trust in Him for salvation, to be infilled by His Holy Spirit, means to have a super-abundance of life.

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History tells how a Roman soldier came to Julius Caesar with the request for permission to commit suicide to end his life. He was a wretched, miserable, dispirited creature with no vitality. Caesar looked at him and declared, "Man, were you ever really alive?" When we try to live our lives powered with our own energy and strength, we end up with Life-Minus. When we are followers of Jesus, we are privileged to live Life-Plus.

That is what I have been trying to say during these last three weeks of teaching about the "Three-Fold Secret of the Holy Spirit." The Holy Spirit comes into our life when we repent and put our trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. The Holy Spirit infills our life when we make a complete, unconditional surrender of ourselves to Him. But then it is our tendency to begin to closet off certain areas of our life, quenching the Holy Spirit, limiting God's access to the entirety of our lives. We need to make a daily inventory, opening ourselves anew to the fullness of the power of the Holy Spirit. As we do it, we are privileged to see ourselves not just knocked around by life, something that happens to us while we are making other plans, but, in a pro-active way, to see God at work within us — in the joys, the tragedies, and the ambiguous times that blend a bit of both into Life-Plus.

One of my friends, who is in AA, came up to me after we had completed the series on the Holy Spirit. He said, "John, what you are saying sounds just like one of the Twelve Steps: total, complete, unconditional surrender of life to one's higher power." That's right. The author of the Twelve Steps took that principle right out of the Bible. And the name of your higher power is Jesus Christ, who comes in the fullness of the Holy Spirit to give you Life-Plus.

There are three qualities that help facilitate the abundant life.

Quality one: This life has a vocation.

This vocation has two aspects to it. One is that of "effectual calling." This means that you have been called to repentance and trust in Jesus Christ. You are one of His. The Holy Spirit has drawn you to Jesus Christ. You have said "yes" to that call. You are accepted in the beloved. That is your effectual calling.