Jesus said in John 17:3, "this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." Many people desire to go to heaven, desire to have eternal life, but they ignore one thing, one crucial thing, eternal life is a life of relationships, a life of love with God. Without love, eternal life would be eternal hell 🔥, and to some degree many of us are experiencing some type of hell on this planet because of the lack of loving relationships.
God is love! Heaven is about relationships. Eternal life is about having an eternal loving relationship with God, Jesus Christ, angels, each other and all of God's other creations throughout the unfallen world. But we know that sin began in heaven, sin began in a place of love. So what is sin then ? Sin is the opposite of love . Sin is selfishness. Sin is doing things that destroy relationship with God for the sake of selfish purposes. Lucifer, the covering cherub was created perfect, meaning he had a perfect loving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. But he desired to be first in heaven and step by step he did thing God didn't like, step by step he destroyed the loving relationship.
Lucifer destroyed his loving relationship with God by pursuing selfish desires at the expense of pursuing God. And as a result he became a devil. So then it is safe to say the pursuit of selfish desires at the expense of God's will is what make us like Satan, make us devils. Selfishness will destroy love wherever it is found. Friends, if we want to be loving people, if we want to start enjoying eternal life we must put aside selfish pursuits and learn from God what love truly is. What is eternal life ? According to Jesus eternal life is knowing God and Jesus. To know God and Jesus is to have eternal life . Love then is about knowing God .
Love is about knowing someone. How do I get to know God then ? I must learn what love is from God. How does God show me He knows me ? God pursues me. While I was in sin, dead in trespasses against Him, the Lord Jesus pursued me. He came down from heaven, showed me kindness for my coldness, blessed me when i didn't deserve it , dwelt with me when I wanted nothing to do with Him, plead with me when I wanted to pursue selfish desires, forgive me when i wronged Him, persevere in love after me despite me rejecting Him. The Lord Jesus showed me through His perseverance, through His pursuit of me that He loved me and as a result I finally relented and give in to His love.
The Lord Jesus showed me what it means to love. Loving someone is making that person feel as if they are the only one in the world. Loving someone is paying attention to them, pursuing them, persevere with them even when they play hard to get at times, even when they appear not interested at times. Loving someone is making them a priority and their wellbeing your reason for living. The Lord Jesus showed me how to love by treating me as if I was the only one on earth. Jesus didn't just die for the whole world, oh no! Jesus died for me, He would have died just for me if I was the only one in need of salvation. This is what it means to love.
Loving someone means you valued that person above yourself, their wellbeing is your priority. So God has shown me what it means to love and then Jesus told me "this is eternal life that I may know God the Father and Him." So to love someone then is to know them, and to know someone involve spending time with them, listening to them, get to understand their character and walk with them on life's journey. Ahhh i got it now ! So eternal life is about having an intimate relationship with God and His Son Jesus Christ. Okay, preacher you getting somewhere. How do i get to know God now since I can't see Him 🤔?
Before I get to showing you how we can know God and start to experience eternal life here, now on this earth, I will ask you a question. Have you ever felt like the people in your life don't understand you ? How fustrating does it feel when no one truly understands you 🤔? Very frustrating. For when people don't understand you, they will misjudge your actions and motives. But the reason why people don't understand you is because they have not make you a priority and so when you speak they hear, but they only hear to give a response, not to comprehend. God cares! God listen to us to help us and He wants us to do the same for Him .
Eternal life is to know the Lord Jesus Christ. You get to know the Lord Jesus Christ by reading His text messages 📲 and sending Him text messages throughout the day. We must pursue after Christ like we are pursuing a lover. When i wake up in the morning, I send the Lord Jesus Christ a good morning text via prayer 📲. Lord, I thank you for waking me up, thank you for your many blessings. Lord help me to draw nearer to you today, help me to be more like you today, wash me of my sins, give me your Spirit today so I may get to understand you even more and our love may increase etc..After I text 📲 the Lord, then I read His text messages to me, I open His Word and hear what He has to say to me.
Relationships go two ways! I pursue you and you pursue me. God pursue us and we pursue Him in return. I pray to God daily and God speak to me in His Word daily. I speak God listens and God speak I listen. As we speak daily, throughout the day I text the Lord in my mind by speaking to Him about my day and He speaks to me by putting thoughts in my mind. The more God pursues me, the more I pursue God and our loving relationship grow stronger . I look to see how God loves me and I pray Lord help me to love you like you love me, help me to make you the priority of my life like you have made me the priority of your life . Lord you are never too busy for me, help me to never be too busy for you.
Jesus is beautiful! And the more time I spend with Him the more I love Him. The more I get to know Him, the more I want to know Him. The more I know Him, the more alived I become, the more beautiful my life gets. To know God is know love, to know love is to have eternal life . As I learn from God, I share with others, as I learn how to love from God, I understand how to love others. To love God is to love others. To know God is to love Him, to love God is to pursue Him. To love is to know, to know is to pursue. Love is the language of heaven, love is the way of life. Let us learn to love God and we will know how to love others.
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