Jesus prayed, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” John 17:3
Eternal life is not found by believing in just any god but by believing in the “only true God.” False gods, both religious and secular, litter the landscape. The only true God is the One who sent the only true Savior, Jesus Christ.
Jesus gives us more than eternal existence. He gives us eternal life: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised up with him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-6 ESV).
merlin’s BOTTOM LINE:
This great truth all hinges on the person and work of none other than Jesus Christ, as forecast by Hosea in Romans 9:25-26 (Message Version) “I’ll call nobodies, and make them somebodies; I’ll call the unloved and make them beloved. In the place where they yelled out, “You’re nobody!” they’re calling you “God’s living children.” Isaiah further continues this unique identity for us in verses 27-28 “If each grain of sand on the seashore were numbered and the sum labeled “chosen of God,” They’d be numbers still, not names; salvation comes by personal selection. God doesn’t count us; he calls us by name. Arithmetic is not his focus.”
Verse 30 continues “How can we sum this ‘nobodies becoming somebodies’ up practically? You notice for all those people who didn’t seem that interested in what God was doing, actually embraced what God was doing as He straightened out their lives. And the Jews who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing (perhaps like our cultural entrapments?), simply missed it.
How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were simply absorbed in what they themselves were doing, and were so absorbed in their ‘God projects” (perhaps becoming somebody?) that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. So they stumbled into him and went sprawling. Isaiah continues in verse 33 giving us a metaphor for pulling this together: “Careful! I’ve put a huge stone on the road to the Celestial City, a stone you can’t get around. But the stone is me! Wake up! If you’re looking for me, you’ll find me ‘on the way,’ not ‘in the way!‘”
Final call folks! “We weren’t meant to be somebody – we were meant to know somebody.” John Piper
Truth: A Bigger View of God’s Word, Randy Alcorn, 2017, Pg 15 Harvest House.