What is "life abundant?" Is it money?

13Someone in the crowd said to him [Jesus], "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." 14But he said to him, "Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?" 15And he said to them, "Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." 16And he told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?' 18And he said, 'I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' 20But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' 21So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God." Luke 12:13-21

The point of this parable is very simple because Jesus explains the parable before he actually tells it. He says, "Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." That’s pretty clear, but here it is again, “one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

John 10:10 is one of the most quoted scriptures among prosperity teachers and they do a great injustice to the passage because they make it out to mean that “life abundant” does consist in material possessions for in John 10:10 Jesus says, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” The end result is that if you are not experiencing debt-free financial living than you do not really posses “life abundant” regardless of Jesus’ gift to you of eternal life. You are still lacking if you do not have money that is "pressed down, shaken together" and "running over." By the way that quote is from Luke 6:38 and it does not speak of receiving a financial return after having invested in God’s kingdom rather it speaks of not judging others so that you are not judged by others because “...with the measure you use [the measure of judgment] it will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:38). In other words, people will not be merciful to you if you have not been merciful to them.

But let us get back to the Gospel of John. We know that there is absolutely nothing wrong with material prosperity, but material prosperity is not a sign that one is “favored” by God for God even prospers the wicked. It is the love of money at the expense of loving God that damns a person. Therefore “life abundant” is not primarily speaking about Jesus dying to offer financial freedom. This is missing the point. Having life abundant is mainly that of having eternal life in contrast to the here and now life in which we grow old and eventually die. This is why Lazarus’ sisters were crying. Their brother had succumbed to sickness and died. Life is not supposed to be this way, but Jesus stood at the place where Lazarus had been decomposing and said to Martha (Lazarus’ sister),

"I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die [in the here and now], yet shall he live [life abundant], and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die [life abundant]. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25-26)

Lazarus’ resurrection was but a glimpse of Jesus’ power over death. The over all theme of the Gospel According to John is that Jesus is the only source of life forever i.e. life with God. I am quoting only from the book of John on this point because my aim is to stay within the over all context of John. The false teaching that life abundant consists of material prosperity is taught from John 10, but this is not in keeping with John’s intent. John spells out his intent for us 20:30, 31.

30Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. John 20:30, 31

He quotes Jesus in chapter five also,

25"Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. John 5:25-26

Does any of this sound as if Jesus is concerned about dying so that we can live it up and roll in the dough? In context, John 10 is consistent with what John is saying throughout his gospel. We are dead even while we walk because of our sins, but Jesus has come to give us life eternal that though we may die in this lifetime yet shall we live forever with Him. It is despicable for prosperity teachers to emphasize material prosperity so much so that the main message of the gospel is lost. In summary Creflo Dollar has claimed that it really is all about money because “You ain’t gone have no peace unless you got some money!”