Day 30: I Can Enjoy Eternal Life Today

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

»  How far are you from absurd happiness and complete fearlessness? Why?

»  What comes to your mind as you imagine living an eternal quality of life today?

»  Imagine God being the ultimate Father, embracing you with tenderness and strength. Rest there for a minute.

»  Practice the memory verse.

QUOTE

“What were we made for? To know God. What aim should we have in life? To know God. What is the eternal life that Jesus gives? To know God. What is the best thing in life? To know God. What in us gives God most pleasure? Knowledge of himself.”

- J. I. Packer

SCRIPTURE

“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
- John 17:3

DEVOTIONAL

One day, God will wrap up this world and introduce us to our eternal destiny. What an awesome and unimaginable thing that will be!
But eternal life is not only life in eternity, it is also an eternal kind of life that can be lived right now. An eternal quality of life that can be enjoyed today in spite of our fallen state, and one that will be enjoyed without limit in eternity.

When your body dies, you will not cease to exist. In a nanosecond you will walk out of this life and into the next one. You will never die. In fact, your eternal life in God’s Kingdom has already begun. As D. L. Moody famously said, “Someday you will read or hear that Dwight Moody is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.” Eternal life is not only something to look forward to, but also to be lived right here and right now.

This is enormously important because it enables us to experience absurd happiness and complete fearlessness in this life, even while being constantly challenged. Knowing God is eternal life; to walk with Him, enjoy His Presence, and be protected by His strength; to know our Abba, Father. Abba is the Hebrew word which most embodies the notion of “daddy,” and Jesus taught us to know God intimately, to refer to Him this way when we pray. He, Himself, cried out to His Abba on the night before His death. Knowing our Abba, Father, is eternal life, and knowing Him is only possible through Jesus.

Jesus said, “whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:14) Eternal life is found in Jesus, and when Jesus finds you, He places in you the fountain of eternal life that enables you to never thirst again - in this life or the next.