And This is Eternal Life

This is something I wrote over a year ago and came across in my files.  I'm going to post it here before rereading and editing, which may not be required anyway.

And This is Eternal Life...

If you are like me and grew up in a Christian home, you have probably spent some time thinking about Eternal Life. I learned early in my Christian life that, after I died, I would spend eternity in Heaven. Now, eternity was a difficult concept and still is. I would think about eternity, and what it would be like to never grow old and never have an ending to anything – the day, a project, a school year, life – and the conclusion I reached was that I didn’t like the sound of that. Nevermind that I would be in the presence of God forever, I didn’t really know what that meant for me, I just knew I wasn’t crazy about trading my earthly reality with its endings and beginnings for a heavenly reality without them.

The truth about Eternal Life wasn’t shared with me and I didn’t go looking for it, but it’s a funny thing about the Bible: no matter how often you read it, and no matter how familiar you are with it, there is always a surprise. The surprise for me was to learn that Jesus defined Eternal Life and that it didn’t look like what I thought it would look like. He says:

“And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” – John 17:3 (ESV)

I almost slapped my hand against my head when I read and understood that for the first time. I didn’t know that the Bible gave definitions; I was looking for the difficult answer revealed through a lifetime of reading and meditation. But Jesus said plainly to his Disciples that this is what you’re after: knowing God and His son Jesus.

Not only is this eternal life, this is Life Itself. In Revelation John gives us a picture of what is happening in the Throne Room of God. Here is a description from Revelation 4:6:

“And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!’”

These four creatures are “full of eyes all around.” They see everything and they don’t miss anything and they sit in the presence of God. They have full knowledge of God and that is why they never cease to praise Him and declare His holiness. Because they have full knowledge of Him there is nothing else they can do but praise Him and declare His holiness.

In the heavenlies there is fullness of knowledge of God. That is what we will experience in Heaven in the presence of the Lord: full knowledge. When Jesus says to us what Eternal Life is he says it is this: Knowing God. We see that the Eternal Life we’re promised is in Heaven and it is full knowledge of God. But we see that Eternal Life is not just in Heaven; Eternal life is knowing God, and that means that Eternal Life can be happening right now. And it also means that the whole purpose of Life Itself is to get to know God.

What a revelation! When I got a hold of this – as I continue to get a hold of this – so many aspects of my understanding of the Christian life are challenged. The purpose of the Christian life is not to struggle until we die and get to Heaven and then know God. The purpose of the Christian life is not to elevate religion. The purpose of the Christian life is not to perfect my physical activity, to rid myself of sin. The purpose of the Christian life is to know God.

So now I come to the problem of prayer. Prayer is a conundrum and a difficulty for me because there is so much unanswered about it. Why pray? In James 5:16 the Word says, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (ESV). Okay, so there’s an answer to why we pray, because prayer is powerful. But if prayer is powerful, and if, as Jesus said, we will receive if we ask, why do we not always receive? Why are our friends and family not healed when we pray? Why doesn’t the rain come? Why don’t prayer chains work? Why do we not always receive what we ask for?

There is an answer in the way that Jesus teaches us to pray, but it is not the answer it seems to be. Jesus says in Matthew 6:9-10 (ESV):

“Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’”

I thought that the answer to why we pray was in this verse because, after all, Jesus is teaching us how to pray here. He says that we should pray for the will of God to be done on earth because it isn’t done. If it was done automatically on earth, why would Jesus teach us to pray for it to be done? And so in reading this I had my answer: God’s will can be done on earth if we pray for it. Jesus says so right here.

The Lord revealed deeper truth, however, and so the answer is not what I felt certain it was. I thought the answer was that Jesus taught us to pray for God's will to be done since it's not automatically done. However, I think that what Jesus was saying was (also) that the way we should pray is in accordance with God's will, in agreement with it. And you can't pray or live or do anything in agreement with God's will if you don't know Him. And that's why I think prayer is first and foremost about knowing Him. I also realized that for us prayer is on our terms, and that's why we have so many hang ups and that’s why we can’t figure it out. That's why we feel like prayer in numbers should be more effective, or that earnest prayers should be more effective, and that's why we feel like prayer is about receiving what we ask for, because it's on our terms. Much like praise and our hang ups and insecurities there, we're on our terms. And the truth is that both praise and prayer are on God's terms. They're both about Him.

If prayer is about knowing God, first and foremost, then prayer is communication, conversation. Jesus tells us, before he shows us how to pray, not to be like the hypocrites who “love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners…but when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.” (Matt. 6:5-5 ESV). And he says, “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases like the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.” (Matt. 6:7 ESV). Prayer is communication, and God, like us, doesn’t do well with bad communication. Who likes it when someone is a show-off in conversation, or talks hollowly with “empty phrases”? Prayer is a church word and it’s our way of saying talk. Jesus is teaching us how to talk to God. Do it like this, he says, and you’ll be doing it well, you’ll really be talking and learning something.

But the fact that prayer is about communing with God and knowing Him doesn’t change the fact that He instructs us to ask for things. In fact, the Greek word for prayer used in James 5:16 means “a seeking, asking, entreating, entreaty to God”. Jesus did tell us to ask for things and he tells us that the Father gives and gives well. “Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matt. 7:9-11 ESV). He gives to those who ask! But what if I ask my Father for cake? Would I complain if instead he gave me bread? Or if I received nothing? Perhaps it’s bread that I should have prayed for in the first place, but how could I know if I didn’t know my Father, know what he has and wants to give?

I heard someone once say that they have heard there are two wills of God: the will of God that is absolute and doesn’t require our cooperation, and the will of God he shares with us in its emergence. And I asked the question, “Well how do we know which is which?” Immediately I had the answer from the Lord: Get to know me and you will know my will. Then you will know how to pray.