Pastor’s Commentary: Are you living your eternal life already?

We all have different ideas of what it means to know something or someone. For example, what do you think “know” implies in the following sentences?

Now, in light of the above “know” words, what kind of “know” do you think Jesus is thinking about in this prayer that he prays? “Father, this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

He doesn’t talk about eternal life in terms of mansions, clouds, harps, crowns, or who’s going to move in next door to us up on the golden streets. For him eternal life is that we “know” God.

Jesus gives us good things to “know” when he assures us, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep” (John 10:14–15).

He also warns that some who think they know him don’t know him at all and more importantly he doesn’t know them. He says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’ ” (Matthew 7:21–23, ESV).

To know that we know God and his son sounds essential to living eternally. Paul certainly thinks so when he writes, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that … I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:7–11).

Have you ever experienced that moment of realizing that someone, you thought was a very close friend, doesn’t know you at all. Then the second realization hits. You don’t know them either!

The nice thing is that the Heavenly Father wants to know us. He is calling us to himself and wants to get close to us. He loves us so much so that he gave his son, Jesus, to die for us so that we could live forever with him (John 3:16).

So we pray with reckless abandon “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23–24).

This story was originally published October 15, 2014 at 6:01 PM with the headline "Pastor’s Commentary: Are you living your eternal life already?."