Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”

How I relate to that! This scenario is so recognizable when I look back on longterm and shortterm patterns in my life. It begins with my rebellion against God’s best for me. With me pursuing something which might be ok in moderation, or at another time or place, etc… But I know somewhere deep down that it’s not what God wants for me then. And when things go wrong, I get downcast and angry, and certainly don’t feel like prayer. Actually, things don’t even need to go wrong. Even knowing that I’m rebelling against God, with things going outwardly fine, yields frustration and the inability to enjoy my day.

Something God has been impressing upon me is the absolute importance of daily time with Him. And making that time a priority. That doesn’t mean it has to be long everyday, or that an appointment can’t reshuffle things, or that I have to write an entry here (which takes quite a while). But in the morning, I sometimes struggle between clicking on the news and stock ticker, and opening the Bible. In my mind, I think I rationalize: “What’s new, what happened while I was asleep? The news and stocks will be different, whereas the Bible has been written for two thousand years…” But the issue is priority. Another person could probably check the news first and then change gears. But I know for me, I need to come to God first – for practical reasons (I get easily distracted), and for symbolic reasons (going to God first timewise seems to put Him first in my heart that day).

Yesterday, that little compromise made for a bad day at work. With a tiny twinge of guilt, I looked at Yahoo news (just for a second!). But what’s this, shorting bond funds is a hedge against rising interest rates? That’s interesting! And so it goes, two hours later I need to rush off to work.

In my last entry, I noticed that Jesus answered the rich man by stating something obvious. Nothing is good in itself except God. All sin derives from believing the opposite in one way or another. Wanting what is good is not a problem. The problem is, we don’t know what is good. Name one person who could orchestrate his own life for ultimate good, let alone everyone’s lives. So if we look for our own good, that’s sin. Jesus tells us what we should do instead: “If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.” And God to Cain: “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?” We should do what God tells us to do, not what we feel like doing!

This is all obvious, but I think it’s interesting how the Bible ebbs and flows and remains self-consistent and immensely applicable the more it is examined. And a continual reminder of “basic” truth is one goal for this blog. The other main goal is growth in the only things that make obeying God possible: belief in and relationship with Him. And this trinity — obedience, faith, and love — are what make life worthwhile. I wonder if hope and obedience are closely related somehow given 1 Corinthians 13:13… Ah well, another time…

I think the “eternal” in “eternal life” is more of a quality than a quantity. It is an absolute. It is that which we all long for, we all strive for — that which God offers to us for free even as we try to grasp or earn it ourselves. What do people desire? Money, toys, power, fame, love from others, knowledge… Yet running after these is like trying to fill an infinitely deep hole with buckets of water. We know we want water, but we can’t get enough.

Jesus used water as an analogy for eternal life, calling it “living water.” The woman at the well he met in Samaria was looking for ordinary water when she met Jesus.

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14)

Relationship and belief in God make up eternal life. Eternal life is not a harp and wings after we die. Eternal life is not even a description of a timeframe. Eternal life is the spirit God gives us through his Son, something which does not, cannot, stand on its own, but rather informs and enriches everything we are and do. And the death of our bodies does not mean the death of this spirit. On the contrary, we are “dead” until we know Jesus.

“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.” (John 5:24-27)

Our eternal life begins and ends with God’s spirit within us, made possible through Jesus’ life and death. It’s a present reality, and physical death will only result in being free of the bonds of this limited body.

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. (Philippians 3:20-21)

Our relationship with God is something that will last forever. In fact, it is the only thing we have that is guaranteed to last forever. And praise God, we need not “work” at it with some kind of ultimate delayed gratification in mind. We are citizens of heaven when we believe, and His rewards are bountiful in this life as well as after it. Does being a follower of Jesus require sacrifice? Yes and no. When we believe, when we really seek Him, our values change. We become willing to give up what the world deems success for what God wants for us. A rich man asked Jesus for a shortcut — a managable “chunk” of goodness that he could add to his life to experience what he knew he was missing, though he was rich (Matthew 19:16-26). Eternal life doesn’t work that way. Believing Jesus means accepting who he says he is – Lord. And accepting Him as Lord means displacing yourself in that position. So yes, we must give up our right to be in control. But in return we “have life, and have it to the full.”

Martyred missionary Jim Elliot summed up this exchange of fleeting life for eternal life: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

I asked God, “Why should we toil, in light of Ecclesiastes?” If our motivation is not gaining anything, be it knowledge, wealth, wisdom, “karma,” acclaim, power for its own sake or power to “change the world for good”… then what is our motivation? Why did Jesus, our perfect example, persevere? I asked Him these things and read several passages randomly, and the theme? Judgement. Not heaven/hell judgement, but accountability for our deeds: Ecclesiastes 11:9-10, John 12:44-50, 2 Timothy 1:8-14. And I recalled something I had read yesterday all about judgement at the last day — that we will be granted eternal life simply for our belief in Christ and acceptance of His love, but that we will be judged and “rewarded” accordingly for our deeds on earth.

But rather than leave it at that carrot/stick level of understanding, God showed me what the reward means, and why it is a joy, not a burden. In the 2 Timothy passage,

“This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

This was Jesus’ mission: destroy death and darkness and reveal God’s truth in a message of love. The gospel is a love letter from God to man (just read John, 4th book in the New Testament!).

In every moment, our “deeds” are either in obedience to truth, or in obedience to our own will. And in this, God is preparing us for eternity. I don’t know how the judgement and rewarding of our deeds will play out in eternity, but it makes sense that our role there, in the undeniable presence of God’s truth, will be shaped by what sort of being we are becoming here when we can deny Him.

Our charge is to reveal God’s wonderful truth in love. And our motivation is being part of the most real, genuine relationship available to us — with Jesus our God who loves us. A relationship that will continue into eternity. But the present — NOW — is part of eternity and we are shaping our eternities. Jesus speaks with authority and beautiful simplicity:

“For I did not speak of my own accord, but the father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.” (John 12:49-50)

Jesus knew obeying God, not his own whims, leads to eternity without death and evil — and He chose to do so. We have the same choice. We all fail, but with His grace, we can join Him in eternity and continue where we left off when we die. I’d like to explore the concept of eternal life next time.