A Taste of Eternity

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

When you think of eternal life, what do you usually think of?  I am guessing you think of Heaven, a far off place at which you will arrive upon your death. 

We tend to equate eternal life and Heaven, but actually they are different, while, at the same time, being inexorably linked.  Jesus says that eternal life begins when we come to know “the only true God, and Jesus Christ.”  Hmmm.  So, according to the Lord, our eternal journey begins in this life at the time we come to know Him.  In other words, we enter the outer borders of Eternity and, as C.S. Lewis phrased it in his Narnia books, we move “further up and further in” during our lifetimes.  Another way to look at it is once we have submitted our lives to Jesus, we are assured we will avoid death, not the physical kind, but the eternal one. 

By now, you may be asking why is this important? Well, if Eternity is not as far off as we once thought, that we are actually on the outskirts of it, then, instead of thinking we’ll find out what it is like when we get there, we can actually begin to get a taste of it during this life.  Perhaps you can even recall a moment, several, or even many, when you felt as if you were experiencing life as it was originally meant to be experienced. Perhaps it was an overwhelming sense of peace or joy, a time when you had fellowship with other believers that truly centered on the Lord, or when you could literally feel the presence of the Lord. These are tastes of Eternity. And we can experience them because we have entered Eternity if Jesus is our Lord.

What often holds us back from these experiences is we are not looking for them or seeking them. We think they come only after we die, but that is contrary to what Jesus says.  He says that He can give us life to the full. And that life and fullness does not begin once we physically die, but at the moment we surrender our lives to Him.

Today, do not think of Eternity as beginning some time in the distant future.  Rather, understand that it began for you the moment you decided to turn your life over to Jesus and follow Him.  You can get tastes of Eternity in this life because you have already arrived there. You are on the outskirts, but in Eternity nonetheless.  So seek to go further up and further in during your life. If you do, most assuredly you will experience tastes of Eternity, which will make you long for Heaven even more.

© Jim Musser 2017