The following words of Jesus are given in John 17:3-5: “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine Own Self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.”
Have you figured out yet that “this is God’s show”, when it comes to what really matters in life and eternity? I love to read the words that Jesus spoke to His Father when He was on earth, for the words of Jesus are always fitting and also helpful to all of us. In our verses above, we learn from Jesus that life eternal is to know the one true God, and Jesus, Who is God also, Whom the Father sent into the world to die in order to save us. Humanity amazes me in much of what it thinks, for when I speak to some people about eternity, they act as if that is of such little importance that they do not have time to hear about it. Have you ever tried to compare time to eternity? To put it another way, I might say, have you ever tried to make a comparison between a million years and infinity? Of course, there is no ratio or proportion between the two, for infinity cannot be measured. Would it make sense if humanity would stop long enough to consider the Bible teaching of eternity? Can a hundred years of life, which most will not have, be compared to eternity? The answer is “no”. Then why do most people seek to “live it up” now, while facing eternity without hope? The answer lies in at least two areas: the fallen position of the human body and brain and the attraction of things in the present that may lead one away from any thoughts about the future!
Our verses above tell us that eternal life is in knowing God the Father and God the Son. That equation should not be too hard to understand, except for the fact that at least three things militate against it: first, mankind has a problem of seeking to do his own thing; second, the devil blinds the minds of those who do not believe God and third, those who may believe the truth about God often put off any decision to know God, until it is too late. When God said, “Let Us make man in our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth”, He was, in essence, making man the ruler over what God Himself had created. God was giving man a position of authority, which would have been a blessing, but man decided that he did not need God to tell him what to do, thus he decided to act on his own authority, so to speak. The problem with this is that it brought judgment from God on the very first couple, thus all of us who are their descendants arrived on earth with a fallen, sinful nature. This is not something that every human being is willing to accept, but the reading of today’s newspaper will likely show any reader that we are a fallen race!
Man made the mess, but God came with a solution, which He had already planned from eternity, thus mankind could be saved from his dilemma, if he should so desire. Now we will pick up with our verses above to see that life eternal is to know God the Father through the sacrifice of God the Son, namely Jesus Christ. This “equation” is not really hard to understand, but perhaps hard to accept by the masses, because man has a “bent” of desiring to do his own thing! The news of the world will show any of us on any given day just where “doing our own thing” has gotten the human race. We are not safe day or night, without a police force; we are not healthy enough to get past age one hundred, or a much younger age usually, yet we seem to think that man can fix his own problems. We have had thousands of years of “trial and error”, and we are still living in “the error zone”! Perhaps it might be worth a try for
those who do not know God to consider calling on Him for salvation through Jesus’ death and resurrection, so that they might live forever in a world with no sin or problems!
By J. Briggs King, Rainsville, AL (678) 451-0921