Eternal Life - Now!

This morning as I am praying I was just reflecting on Jesus' prayer at the beginning of the seventeenth chapter of John - John 17:1-3 NIV:

[1] "After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:
 “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. [2] For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. [3] Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."

As in John's letters, he reiterates the fact that Eternal life is equivalent to knowing the Lord (Father and Son, and implied Holy Spirit).  The word translated knowing is the Greek Word, ginosko and it defined as follows:

1) to learn to know, come to know, get a knowledge of perceive, feel
    a) to become known
2) to know, understand, perceive, have knowledge of
    a) to understand
    b) to know
3)  Jewish idiom for sexual intercourse between a man and a woman
4) to become acquainted with, to know

In other words, eternal life is being relationally connected intimately with Jesus and the Father.  If this is possible for us to experience today, in our life as we know it then we don't need to have a future eternal life mindset, but rather can have a present eternal life mindset.  We can experience eternal life here on Earth!  It seems to  that this is exactly what Jesus was talking about in John 14: 10-14 where He said we could do the same things that He had been doing, and even greater, and it was all based on relationship.

Oh, that we would start to grasp the reality that Jesus describes.  He wants us to live in Him, and He wants to live in us! He wants us to experience this eternal life now!!  Oh Lord, I want to know You more, understand You, perceive Your thoughts, Your heart and to be able to walk in this depth of relationship with You!  I want to walk in eternal life here and now!

Amen!