Have you considered what it means to live? To have life more abundantly in Jesus?
...that they "may" have life and life more abundantly. The word "may" means to me that the option is there but it's still a choice.
It's John 10:10 and I don't have a version nearby that I like to quote exactly.
Do you think what the people living in sin or intentionally working iniquity have is life? I don't. It feels like decay and torment. I don't want to speak as though I have authority on what it's like for them but do you want the long life that God seems to allow them? Is that even life to you?
It's not life to me and it's making me a tad emotional (to my surprise) to see it this way but that doesn't look like long life to me. If anything, I at least know that the fullness of life is only found in him and when I stray I'm just surviving. The enemy has a well...form of life but it's like sodden decay.
Like, I could turn to him and have that...but, uh, why? That's not what I want and that's not life...that's death. Physically you are alive but spiritually you undergo decay and rot. What makes that look like the Lord isn't remaining true to what he said?
I feel like I have experienced this to an extent I'm not willing to speak about now.
To be sure, I also feel like the literal interpretation needs to be given its place as well. Many years of being physically alive doesn't imply a "full life with all the blessings and beauty of the Lord meted out unto old age".
I know for a fact I've had blessings that I've missed because I chose decay and my own way. Are there no blessings left? I don't think so and I don't feel so...but you do reap what you sow for God is not mocked (though that last part of the verse I'm still learning).
If a wicked person lives to be 120, does that make God a liar? Or are we just not understanding what abundant life is?
Something to consider...it's the first time I've seen it this way in this particular fashion and may be he is literal or it's a blend or this is just something for me to work through as truth or lie but does a rich person imply God's favor? Does that imply that they are living? Does evil triumph imply he loves them and it is "going well with them"?
It usually seems much clearer when talking to someone else about, In the watches of the night things are a bit "dicier" but you know, I have felt it smart to redeem the time when I have it available. It's been impressed on me in my heart. To store it up because there could be a storm coming that very night or the next day.
Hopefully some of this will speak to you, it's hard to put it into words because I have to wrestle against my fleshly desires (namely human justice according to "my" understanding and prosperity aeording to "my" understanding of righteousness usually in the physical) so I'll end but with a......