"Eternal Life"

  Let's learn about God! Let's come to know God! Let's not just learn some facts or know about Him but come to know Him in the deepest level that we can. And how does one do that? You have to listen and spend time with Him! If you think you can assemble with the saints once or twice a week and come to know God, you're missing Him. I don't mean we can't come to know Him at the assembly. The assembly is where God should be most visible. Many times there is too much football talk, baseball talk or some other hobby or catch up time on the latest news. It robs us! We need to know God!!

  Let me offer you some ways in which you can come to know God in a deeper level. Learn to walk where He wants you to walk! That's rather simple. But what about when someone does you wrong, how do you react? You are faced with two choices. Resent them or embrace them? "And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, 'I repent,' forgive him." (Luke 17:4) How many of us would be willing? Once or twice, maybe but seven? Right then and there you find out if you're willing to know God. How many times over your life has God forgiven you? More than seven? And how about in a day? When you forgive anyone, no matter what they have done to you, you step into God's world of love and begin to discover how He lives and walks. You begin to know God!

  He was a man who claimed God yet held grudges. He wouldn't call them grudges but had 'documented' the times he felt he was wronged by another. Ever met someone like that? Listen to the word of the Lord: "We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death." (I John 3:14) To not love (this is the sacrificial love) is to remain spiritual dead! Here is love defined in I Cor. 13: "...does not take into account a wrong suffered." People who keep records of wrongs do not love, live in death and do not know God. "The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love." (I John 4:8) It was Jesus who said eternal life was knowing "the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." (John 17:3) Paul reminded the Thessalonians about the return of Jesus that there would be those who will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord. And who are they? "Dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus." (II Thes. 1:6-9) Two groups targeted. We readily agree about those who do not obey the gospel but have we ever thought about those who do not know God?

  We need to know God! Take time in prayer and read His word. Listen carefully to His voice as He speaks in His word and then walk where He walks! Therein you will find yourself coming to know God...and that's eternal life!