Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” John 17:1-3.
This is the promise which He Himself promised to us: eternal life. 1 John 2:25.
In the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago, but at the proper time manifested, His word, in the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior. Titus 1:2-3.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God says:
I want your life to be filled to overflowing with My goodness. Jeremiah 31:14. David reminded and encouraged himself with My goodness, “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me bless His holy Name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not ALL His benefits!” Psalm 103:1-2. He knew that those who seek Me lack for no good thing. Psalm 34:10.
Today we close our series “Forget Not ALL His Benefits” with Life Lesson No. 9: “Eternal Life.” This is the crown of all My benefits, they all hang on this and they make no sense without it, for if your hopes are limited to just your life in the flesh in the world you are the most pitiful of men. In fact, you are a fool. My Son told you about a rich man that grew rich only for himself to enjoy his life by satisfying the cravings of his flesh alone, with no thought of anything after the death of his flesh. “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’ So is the man who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” Luke 12:20-21. You have a much larger purpose and destiny than just looking to satisfy the desires of your flesh. If you live only for that you will bring yourself to ruin. You were made for a Kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world. You were made to reign with Me forever, both in this present age and in the age to come. Romans 5:17; Revelation 22:5. “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.” John 6:27.
Eternal life. What is it? It is life without end, but that is not enough to make you desire it. It is the quality of it, the abundance of it, the beauty of it, the majesty of it, the magnificence of it, the wisdom of it, the significance of it, the fruitfulness of it, the honor of it, the knowing you have in it, and the GLORY of it. It is My plan of shalom and no evil that I have for every person—nothing missing, nothing broken and no one alone. It is a future filled with good. It is living in the perfection of love and light completely free of poverty, pain, illness, darkness, evil, danger, defeat, and death. It is a world that Adam lost that you have never known but that your innermost being longs for and is seeking. It is your true homeland. All creation is longing for the manifestation of the children of God. It is what you were made for and where you belong. I have put eternity in each person’s heart. But it is even more than that. It is the highest and most beautiful, precious, and eternal relationship that can be experienced by man. And this is the way My Son defined eternal life in His prayer for you addressed to Me the night He was betrayed: “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” John 17:1-3. The intimacy of oneness between Me and you.
Eternal life is not about what you do, but who you know.
The knowing will take care of the doing. But the doing is no substitute for the knowing. “Therefore they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.’” John 6:28-29. Never get so distracted with working for Me that you forget about knowing Me. “But the Lord answered and said to her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.’” Luke 10:41-42. “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the unbelievers eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:31-33. I have given you the great good Shepherd who came to bring you this abundant eternal life and He assured you, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” John 10:27-30. You are unsnatchable. See yourself that way whenever the devil shows up and respond accordingly.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” John 3:16-17. There is only one way to have eternal life and that is to know and believe in My Son. “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” John 6:40. And it is by His death on the Cross that removed your sins from you and presented you holy, blameless and without reproach before Me that you receive this gift of eternal life, for the sentence of condemnation upon Adam and his seed issued in the Garden of Eden, “dust you are and to dust you shall return,” has been satisfied and paid in full by Jesus going down to the dust of death in your place. And when I raised Him up free from sin you were totally justified and raised up to the newness of eternal life in Him. For just “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life.” John 3:14-15.
So I have given you eternal life with Me forever and that life is in My Son. “And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” 1 John 5:11-13.
My gift to you of Jesus is the gift of eternal life. When you believed in the good news of His death and resurrection and all it meant to you for your salvation, redemption and sanctification, I sealed you in Him by the Holy Spirit and commanded Him to raise you up on the Last Day. Ephesians 1:13; John 6:38-40. I sealed you with the same Holy Spirit with which I sealed Jesus. Remember when Jesus was baptized by John at the Jordan River? What happened that changed everything? John testified about Jesus, saying, “I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him. I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’ I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God.” John 1:32-34. And as Jesus stepped out in His public ministry after that He announced, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, He has anointed Me.” And with this same Spirit I have sealed you and anointed you in Him, for “if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” Romans 8:11. In Jesus, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed in Him, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of your inheritance, with a view to the redemption of possession, to the praise of His glory. Ephesians 1:13-14. And you know what that anointing with the Holy Spirit caused? “God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with power, and He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.” Acts 10:38.
Sealed in Christ. Safe in My secret place. “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” 1 John 5:19-20. Do you see? Again it is about knowing the one true God and the one He sent.
And you can all know Me from the least to the greatest. How? By My Spirit in you and on you. The gift of Jesus is the gift of eternal life. The gift of the Spirit is the realization of it beginning now and forever. For you to have eternal life you must be joined with My Spirit within your spirit. Jesus told you this, “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” John 4:12. And He was speaking of the Holy Spirit. John 7:37-39.
Jesus told you, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” John 3:5-6. For “as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” John 1:12-13.
So ultimately eternal life is an eternal relationship, but of a very unique and special kind; it is a relationship of Love Himself with the ones Love has made. And Jesus, who only says My Words and shows you Me, prayed that we would all be as ONE.
I love you. Abide in My love forever. It is open to you. Why would you ignore so great a treasure?