“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” – John 10:10

From the beginning creativity has been uniquely found in God.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth … – Genesis 1:1

In his creativity and through his love God made all that is. The universe, the world, man, and the spirits that occupied heaven – Cherubim, Seraphim, and the other myriads of spirits he intended to serve both himself and man.

Day-to-day most of us don’t really think about the spirits he created. The spirits were created before man. Exactly when is unclear from scripture. However, when God created spirits, in order that they might serve with a limited degree of autonomy, they were given the ability to make decisions. Specifically, the ability to choose.

Man, on the other hand, was imparted with more. Not only the ability to choose. But also, with God’s creativity. The singular ability, however limited it may be compared to himself, to create.

Remember that it was God’s original intent for man to rule the world God had just created (Genesis 1:28). Man and woman together in his image. Endowed with creativity as the very essence and foundation of that rule. Created beings, gifted with choice and creativity to be rulers, kings and queens, of the Kingdom of the earth.

This distinction between man and spirits is crucial to mining the statement Jesus made in John 10:10 about the Pharisees.

Many interpretations of John 10:10 in the Church equate the “thief” with the Evil One. However, when you look at John 9 and 10 together in context, Jesus is clearly speaking specifically about the Pharisees.

And yet, as with most scripture, there more going on. More that, if we’ll dig a bit, helps us more fully understand the depth and meaning of Jesus’ words. As the old saying goes,

“There is more here than meets the eye!”

When Lucifer, the magnificent Cherub, rebelled and took a third of the spirits of heaven with him, they were banished to a spiritual realm called “the heavenlies.” There they lived viewing the earth, man, and his creativity, the “Imago Dei” of God, with loathing and malice.

In God’s original creation, spirits were intended to serve God and man to further the Kingdom of God and assist man in doing the same; the creation of life and the environments where that life could flourish.

It is the creativity of God that brings life and, yes, life to the full. Abundant life. However, for those spirits who rebelled against their created nature to serve, their created nature was broken. Now, instead of serving they are only capable of obstructing and destructing.

And, with creativity being the sole purview of God and man, for evil spirits, creativity is the ultimate “itch” that cannot be scratched. The ultimate desire that cannot be experienced. The ultimate purpose they can never, ever fulfill.

All that is left to them in their vengeance and malice is to steal, kill, and destroy what has been created. The personification of envy – “If I can’t have it, no one will!”

Evil spirits can do nothing else. They turned against God and in choosing to do so, they also lost their ability to choose. They are now only capable of opposing, in every way known, what God and man create.

A similar path follows for men and women who choose to follow them. What the bible calls the hardening of the heart.

This is what happened to the Israelites in the desert (Exodus 17:1-7 and Numbers 20:1-13), to Pharaoh (Exodus 7:13), to the Pharisees (John 10:10), and resulted in a strong warning to us in Hebrews,

So, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.’ So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”

See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. – Hebrews 13:7-14

When a person’s heart is hardened, they have fully aligned themselves with the foul powers of the Evil One and there is no turning back. Their only desire and purpose being to “steal, kill and destroy.” The structure of the Greek words translated as “only” in this passage is a double negative. It is an emphatic, “There is no change possible”, “set in stone” statement in scripture.

Like the Evil One and his following spirits, when a person so rebels against God and aligns themselves with the persons of evil that their heart becomes hardened, they choose against their design and purpose. Unlike spirits who chose to reject choice. For men and women, it is a choice to reject both choice and, more importantly, our God-given creativity. Our ability to create life and the environments where that life can flourish.

The death of creativity occurs when we follow the path of the Evil One and harden our hearts, when we reject the “Imago Dei.” And, when creativity dies so does the greatest gift of God’s creativity. Love.

“The thief only comes to steal, kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life [creativity], and have it to the full.”

Please check out my new book,

THE TOV HEART: God's Design for a Life Rooted in What Matters Most 

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It is my hope and prayer that you will be blessed and challenged to look for more with God - Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit. No matter how much you think you have, there is always MORE! Godspeed!

Copyright © 2025 Ray Schmidt