52. If you have a relationship with God, you have eternal life today.
Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. {John 17:3}
These are the words of Jesus, describing in very simple terms what eternal life is: it is to know God, to have a relationship with God. If you have that, if you are not separated from God by a hardened heart, then you have eternal life today. You’re not waiting for it, you’re not getting it later, you’re not going to somehow acquire it upon your death or when Jesus returns. You have it today.
It’s also right there in the most famous Bible verse, yet we know this verse so well that many of us simply read over it and don’t consider the implications: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” This says that whoever is connected to God, believes in Him, has a relationship with Him, shall not perish. That means, they will never die, but they have eternal life. Not, they will get eternal life. No, they have it now. And how many people who have believed in God and clung to this verse gone to sleep in the grave of the first death? Millions! But they have not perished. For the moment they trusted in Jesus, they had eternal life. And they still have it today, even while they’re sleeping.
This life we are living is not somehow a rehearsal for another life to come. The life that is “to come” is the same life that we have here and now. It is all just one life, an eternal life, rooted in a relationship with God, and if we have Him today, we have it today. And nobody can ever take it away from us!
If you want to dig deeper—
Proverbs 8:35
John 3:16, 36
John 5:24
John 6:51
John 8:49-53
John 10:28-30
Colossians 3:4
1 John 2:17
1 John 5:11-13