Eternity in the Everyday

“And this is what He promised us - even eternal life” (1 John 2:25).
 
​Most of us would read the words “eternal life” as though they only apply to heaven in the future. Yes, everlasting life is the life to come that never ends. But the thought that it is only ‘to come’ isn’t entirely inaccurate! While it is true to acknowledge that eternal life is life that never ends, the essential factor about eternal life is not quantity, but quality. What John is speaking about in 1 John 2 is not just something we are going to get in heaven someday, but it is actually something we can experience and enjoy right now! It is fullness of life - the full quality of divine life lived out in your situation, right now…and it increases in fullness of enjoyment forever. In other words, eternal life is the daily adventure of experiencing God's solution to every problem instead of seeking your own solution. It is the blessing of discovering God's desire for every opportunity.
 
Every time we are confronted with a problem, there are two things we can do:

• In the weaknesses of our own understanding, and relying on our own human resources, we can try to work out the problem ourselves. When we do this, the result is inevitably the same. Henry Ford is attributed with saying that "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got." In this, life will disintegrate into a dullness, a boredom, a routine that will only leave you disinterested and with no desire at all to be involved. That’s our way.

 

• Or we can have God's solution to any problem or any opportunity. In any situation we can say, “Lord, You are in me, and You have come to live through me. This situation has been brought about by Your permission. Father, I wouldn't be in it if it were not for You. Now, Lord, do through me what You want to do.” It is then that we are able to watch and see what God does! We become instantly available to Him and we discover that His program begins to unfold in that situation. Every obstacle becomes a glorious opportunity to display the fullness of glory, wisdom, and power that is in the One who has come to live and make His home within us.

 
I remember as a young Christian reading a great promise that is found in Ephesians – “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us...” (Ephesians 3:20). I remember looking at that verse and thinking, Is that really true? Does God really offer to do for me beyond anything I can ever ask or think at this moment? That's amazing because I know can ask a lot of life. I can dream and imagine a huge number of wonderful experiences that I would love to have and that, I am sure, would bring satisfaction to me. I even had, at one time, the program outlined in my mind as to how it was that God could do it. But as I look back across the years since I first read those words in Ephesians 3, I can see that even though God did not take my program and do it the way I thought it should be, yet He has abundantly fulfilled the promise. My life is far richer and more complete than I ever dreamed it would be when I was a young Christian.
 
If we are ready to give ourselves to the Word of God and to let truth possess us - to understand it, and to obey it - if that which you have heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. The experience of that here and now is eternal life!
 
Pray with me: “Father, grant to me, through all the feeble searchings of my heart, the discovery of eternal life in my everyday experience. Amen.”
 
Ps Stephen