Everlasting life… now
What is your view of heaven? What image comes to mind? Maybe the streets are paved with gold; maybe there are clouds everywhere. I can’t say much about what heaven looks like, but I would like to touch a bit on what this life might look like in relation to heaven.
When we are saved, we are often brought into this idea that because of Jesus’ death on the cross, we will go to heaven when we die, which is true. But I believe that this salvation also invites an immediate response and transformation of our lives. John 17:3 says, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” According to Strong’s concordance, the word used for “eternal” in Greek (αἰώνιος or aiōnios) means “without beginning or end, that which always has been and always will be.” Heaven may be the full realization of our sanctification when we die, but we are primarily saved to Christ and to a relationship with Christ, not just from eternal separation from Christ.
So what does everlasting life in the immediate sense look like? We’ll need to understand two things before we can answer that. The first is the acknowledgment of the metaphysical aspect of human life. 1 Corinthians 15:44b says, “If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.” Emotions are certainly not the entirety of the metaphysical but point towards evidence of it. Okay, why is this important? That leads me to the second thing we need to understand.
We are born spiritually dead. The Apostle John says that eternal life is to know God, yes. But we are all born without a relationship with God due to our nature of sin that we inherit from the original sin of Adam and Eve. The apostle Paul adds to the nature of spiritual death in Ephesians 2:1-3, “And you He (Jesus) made (spiritually) alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath (death), like everyone else.”
So we are born spiritually dead, but when we come to know Jesus and believe He died on the cross for our sins, we step into everlasting life, also known as a relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Relationship with God is part of His original design for humanity. We find fulfillment, purpose, peace, and satisfaction in this relationship with Jesus. As part of the Lord’s prayer, in Matthew 6:11, Jesus says, “ Give us this day our daily bread.” I believe this to mean physical food for us to eat, but also spiritual food. In John 6:35, Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.”
Is Jesus your daily bread? Do we live our days in relationship with Him, inviting Jesus into what we are doing? Maybe there are things that we would rather not invite him into. When Jesus is not our daily bread, we reject the opportunity to live as God designed us to live. Everlasting life is not only something that we step into when we die but also something we have the opportunity to choose daily.
