I John 2:25 And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.
This evening, we will continue with our consideration of the promises of God that are active in our lives, which is the complete reason for those promises of God. They are the dynamic truths of God in our lives, bringing us through the peril and strife of this age, and culminating in the eternal life of Christ to the complete glory of God the Father. Too many people look at God and Christianity as focusing only on the here-after in some abstract continuation of our earthly experiences. Too many think of God in terms of later in life, as we are coming to the end of our days on this earth. At that point, we will seek Him to protect us from Hell. Eternal life? - that is for the ages to come, according to these proponents. The earthly concept is that the here and now requires the success of man over nature and good over evil, as often portrayed in the media of this age.
Initially, we do agree that eternal life represents the ages of ages to come. We have no idea what it will entail or how we are to be a part of it. There is no human mind that can conceive of all that God has intended to do in filling the vast ages ahead of us. That is something that will be evidenced as we depart from this present age and live in the revelation of Christ and His Church to all of creation. We do know that we will be a living praise unto God for His Glory revealed in Christ. We pray that our tongues, our souls, our hearts and our spirits will be in complete worship of God: Father, Son and Spirit. We also know, with surety, that our eternal essence will be in the constant presence of the Lord God Almighty.
But beyond this measure, we have no conception of how the Glory of God will be revealed and seen in the face of our Lord Jesus Christ. The heaven of eternity is hidden from our view at this time. The plight of this earth, on the other hand, is ever before us as we see how this world power is trying to seduce its victims any away from the truth. We are in the world, although not part of the world, in order that God will have that perfect expression of His Love before all humanity. Yes, His perfect expression of Love. Nothing can be added nor subtracted from what He has accomplished, in Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior. Thankfully it does not depend on us or on our efforts to be perfect. His expression belongs to the Holy Spirit as He brings forth the truth of the Love of God in the giving of His Son. It is shown as the Holy Spirit guides us into the perfection of Christ through the revelation and the working life of the Word of God made incarnate.
Our lives on this earth are to be the reflection of that eternal life that we now have in Christ. That eternal life is a promise of God as recorded in John 17:1-3, After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 
It is because we are saved by the pure sacrifice of the Son of God, that we are now the recipients of eternal life. Please consider the passage that we just read. The entire focus of eternal life is that we will know God: Father, Son and Spirit. It is in that promise that we realize that Christianity is not a here after longing, it is a now revelation of Jesus Christ living forth from our lives. Eternal life is part of us now, this moment. It is our new life in Christ Jesus as we accepted Him into our hearts. After all, what happens as we begin to live the life that Jesus is in us? We come into a deeper and deeper knowledge of God, in all His Love, and Breadth, and Height, and Mercy, and Grace, and Longsuffering, and Gentleness, and Kindness, and Meekness, and Patience, and Reality.
	It is on this earth that He is now manifesting Himself in the lives that are our portion, day in and day out. The trouble with many of humanity is that they have never learned to appreciate what is their portion today. Let us look at the average person. He longs for a better life. He maintains his daily life with a yearning for the day when he will have it all, will be comfortable, will be free to do what he wants to do rather than what he has to do. Day after day, week after week, there is the lack of understanding evidenced in his yearning. He does not appreciate the beauty that surrounds him, but fantasies about the beauty that awaits him. He suffers through the drudgery and toil with an eye to that day when he will be on top of the world. Some men’s hearts are not as lofty in their goals; they simply are looking for what is better than what they already have. Even the world recognizes this principle with the saying that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. 
	As Christians, we seem to carry that nature with us into the things of God. We are always looking for what is to come, and yes, that is a glorious anticipation after the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. But, we are overlooking that which is part of us now, this moment in Christ. His eternal life is operative within our beings at this very time. 
	1 John 1:1-2 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched — this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 
	Jesus Christ is now our very life on this earth. He is not waiting for some day to come, He is working effectively and efficiently at this time within us, and through us unto others. As we walk in His truth, as we listen to and obey the Holy Spirit, as we read and treasure His Word, He is able to show us that our life is to be the direct witness of the One Who is our very breath on this earth. He is being evidenced in truth and in being through the persons who are filled with His eternal Life. How we live is the evidence of who we are. As we live forth from the Son, this world sees the true witness of Our God, the Father. He is evidenced in the manner in which we respond to the daily aspects of our walk on this earth. There is nothing in the future that is not part of us now. Let me rephrase this for emphasis, there is nothing coming at some point ahead of us, that we do not have access to at this very moment in Jesus Christ our Lord. 
	Eternal life is knowing God the Father. I ask us to search our hearts and our beings right now. Do we know God the Father? How do we know Him? It is through the Son Who bore witness to Him in the full expression of His Love. Do we know Him better today than we did yesterday? Is there an ongoing desire in our hearts to know Him more, more abundantly, more intimately, and more worshipfully? Of course we know more about God than we did when we were not saved. Yes, we know Him more fully than we did when we were newborns in Christ. Of course we have a better and living understanding of the way God operates in the lives of those whom He has called unto Himself. We have this knowledge because of what the Holy Spirit has accomplished in our lives. We have seen Him working to bring about that which would give evidence of Christ in our lives. Things have changed over our time in Christ. Areas of our lives that once were dominated by the power of this realm are no longer enslaved to this world. Our perspective has been elevated from the continual vision of us, unto the perpetual vision of Him in action and in His saving grace. The focus of our lives has been drawn away from what we are getting out of it unto that which God will receive in all that we say, do, or think. Is this perfected in us, not yet? But, consider, please consider how far the Holy Spirit has been able to bring us from where we started. 
	Each day we are experiencing the truth of why Christ came to this earth. Each day, we are seeing the Hand of God in operation. Our prayers have changed their focus from help me oh Lord, to Lord, make me a help unto others. We open our hearts unto those in need. We are compassionate to those in distress. We are comforting to those in turmoil. All of this is the evidence that God has done a mighty work in us to His glory and for His sake. That, my brothers and sisters, is eternal life in the here and now. That is the evidence that God is now bringing forth the praise in us that will fill all of eternity, from this instant onward. 
	Our knowledge of God and His good work and His wonderful awesomeness is more than eternity can contain. He has proven Himself to such an extent in our beings and in the beings of our fellow saints, that we cannot but burst forth with praise and adoration. That is why our times of fellowship are so important and to be guarded with all our hearts. It is the time when we, the beloved of God, can come forth and join the heavenly chorus in lifting our hearts before Him in praise and adoration. This is not a future choral expression, it is today’s hearts rendering unto God that which our hearts can bring forth in love. As His Body, we gather to share in the worship of Him Who is worthy above all consideration to be worshipped. 
	And this is not just on Sunday morning. No, we gather together with our young people, with the women, with the men, with the young married, with the prayer warriors throughout the week. With regard to our young, they are as fully partakers of His life as anyone of us. They are fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, learning to walk in the way of the Lord. We are there to support and to instruct and to love them. We are there to lift them before the throne of God’s grace for His covering upon them all the days of their lives. 
	We gather together, as brothers and sisters in the Lord, encouraging one another in Him, seeking the greater depth of the knowledge of God with all our hearts locked in unison before Him. We lay our hearts open with one another in the grace of God’s magnificence and tell of the wonderful deeds that He has done in our lives and in the lives of those He touches around us.
	As His Body, we gather together to bring our petitions before Him. We know that He knows everything before we mention it, but, as we come before His throne together, with our fellow saints, arm in arm and with hearts open fully unto Him for His glory to be evidenced, we touch His heart. We call forth the Love that we have for Him and ask Him to shower it in all abundance upon those we are laying before His throne. It can never be done as gossip or as an elevation of ourselves above those in strife. That will have no basis before Him. Rather, as we lay our lives before Him for His will to be done, our hearts are brought into the oneness of His Son. That is why prayer together, lifting one another before Him, is so vital and such a tremendous testimony of Him. We join together with the hearts that seek only to have God manifest Himself in life on this earth. Those we carry before Him, we seek to have God show Himself forth in their lives as He has done in ours. We give ourselves for them, as He gave Himself for us.
	We gather together, just as this evening, seeking the ways of the Lord to be revealed to us and in us. We are part and parcel of one another. It can be no other way, because we are joined together in Christ by the Holy Spirit. He is active to bring forth that which will produce the fullness of Christ in us, His Church. We are brought, together, into the depths of spiritual life, eternal life. 
	John 3:14-15 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. We have the word of the only begotten Son of God giving witness to the fact that He is the source of life. Consider how Moses was put into the position, as the servant of God, to bring life and health to the Children of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness. He was told to hold up the staff with the brass serpent on it as the means of the salvation of God to the Children of Israel. They had spoken, once again, against God, and had once more decried the fact that Moses had lead them out of Egypt to die in the wilderness. God sent forth fiery serpents among the people, and the ones who were bitten were dead or dying. God told Moses to bring salvation to the people by lifting up the brass serpent and everyone who had been bitten, if they looked upon the serpent on the staff was healed. This showed the salvation of God in those who would but turn from their sinful attitudes and obey that which God had commanded. If they had the faith to lift up their eyes and look to the way of God’s salvation, they would be saved.
Such is what we are seeing in this realm that surrounds us. We are seeing those people who have been bitten by the poisonous fangs of this world age. They are desperate in their moans of agony and death. They are being paralyzed with the venom of this corrupt and defiled realm. There is no hope for any of them, of us, unless we look to the salvation of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. He must be lifted up before the eyes of this sightless land, in order to have the blinders removed, and the healing grace of God to bring mercy into their beings. It is only as Christ is seen by the blind, as He heals the wounds caused by the tormentors of this age, as He calms the storms of despair that any will be saved. 
The Church, the Body of Christ, those endowed with eternal life through the mighty work of God Alone, are the ones who are called to lift up the Lord Jesus Christ as the only salvation of the plagued people in our lives. It is the eternal life of Christ which will beckon and touch those people that God has placed in the realm of our influence. Believe me, there is nothing that you or I can do of ourselves that will bring life to the spiritually dead of this age. It is only Christ, only the lifeblood of the One Who gave Himself for all men, Who can rescue the lost of this world. We, individually, and as the Corporate Body of Christ, are called to be the witness of the One in Whom we have received eternal life. Are you aware of the fact that this is the specific reason that we are still in the world. We are here to be the living witness of eternal life in Christ Jesus. This is definitely not the delegation of eternity. The future is not something that we hold forth to the desperate and swiftly dying in this world. They have no time for someday. They have no hope in the promises of the future when they are barely surviving the day to day perils of this time. They need life, life abundant and life eternal. They need the Lord Jesus Christ, and they need Him now, this, day, this very instant. That is why we are the living witness of the One Who is Life in us - Eternal life. 
It is in our walk before God and before man that the inhabitants of this world will see that the life of Christ will never fade with time. It will never cease to be fresh and lovely. It will never disappoint. It will never betray. It will never dissolve like the fleeting popularity of this day. He is Life and He is salvation, bless His Holy name forever and forever, starting this very second in our hearts. 
John 6:38-40 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. This is the assurance that we have that none of those people who are called to live in the life of Christ will be lost. It cannot happen since the very Son of God has declared His promise from the Father. Christ came into this world to do only the will of the Father. That will meant that man must be saved. The only way of salvation was through the perfect sacrifice of the Son on our behalf. As Christ has fulfilled that glorious will of the Father in His complete expression of Love, so has the Father given unto Him those who are now and forever partakers of His life. The eternal ages will be filled with the life that we have now in Christ. It is a surety, sealed with the Holy Spirit, another gift of the heart of the Father to man through Jesus Christ. Just as Christ needs to be held up in the living testimony that we are on this earth, so also are we lifted up by the Love of God in Christ Jesus. He is there for us every moment of the day or night. He is continually abiding in our beings through the effective ministry of the Holy Spirit. He is holding us close to His heart and shielding us in complete safety from all the flights of arrows launched in this world age. We are held in the very loving hands of God and lifted out of the mire of the world that surrounds us.
Have you ever looked at the difference in the life that we now live in Christ? Have you ever pondered the fact that we could not survive apart from Christ? Has the realization yet dawned to the fact that we could no longer live as the world lives? Have you come to the recognition that we could now, no longer make it through the day, the week, the month, the year without Christ? We are secure in our life in Christ, while we see the victims of this age scurrying here and there in every futile attempt to find some purpose in the breaths that they take. We see the pitfalls and we see the facades of this age, and are in earnest prayer that no one will be lost in its foolish and deceived ideas of what life is? We see the traps laid by the deceit of the philosophies and religions that have been instituted in the vain attempt to fill the spiritual void that can only be satisfied by the person of Jesus Christ, living forth in the brilliance of the Love of God.
John 6:46-48 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. All life, even eternal life, needs to be sustained in some manner. This earthly life of ours is fueled by the foods that we consume. The life ceases if it is not maintained with proper sources of energy to produce life. The same principle is evident, is seen in the spiritual life, the eternal life of our Lord Jesus Christ. In order to continue living in Christ, we need more of Christ. He is the purpose, He is the essence, He is the substance, He is the source of all that we need to live for eternity. The Bread of Life, the Lord Jesus Christ, not just sustains us in our spiritual need, but satisfies beyond any reckoning on our part. Nothing we eat on this earth can ever fully satisfy. There is always something better, something improved, something added to the food of this life. It is continually having to be replenished and becomes tiresome and boring if the same food is eaten over and over again. 
However, the Bread of Life, the sustenance of the Lord Jesus Christ, satisfies completely and eternally. John 6:53-58 Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever. 
He always gives Himself in abundance and to overflowing. Nothing can be added, nothing can be subtracted. The Bread of life in Christ nourishes completely and fundamentally. He brings forth growth and maturity. He enables spiritual development to progress in direct proportion to the sustenance that we require. He knows every need. He knows every requirement of our beings. He knows us and He knows exactly how to nourish us in Himself. We are fully endowed with the abundance of God in Christ Jesus, beyond any human understanding or comprehension. Who we are is calculated not in the lives that we live in the flesh, but in the life that springs forth unto eternity in the lives that we live before Him, through Him and by Him. In all things, He Alone is our sustenance. He Alone is our hope. He Alone is our joy. The Lord Jesus Christ Alone is our life now and evermore.
And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.