November 10 Daily Devotional

Eternal life is ... to be with Him

What is eternal life? Our Lord has denned it. ‘This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent’ (John 17:3). Or, as John puts it in his First Epistle, where he writes in order that his readers ‘may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ’ (1 John 1:3). Now the Psalmist says [73:28], ‘This is my resolve. I want to keep near this God; I want to keep in touch with Him; I want to spend all my time with Him; I want to live as always in His presence. I like to think of His power and His promises, to remember His constancy’. And is not this a comforting and consoling, as well as an uplifting, thought? We do not know what is awaiting us, we live in a world that is full of change and we ourselves are inconsistent. The best of us are changeable creatures. And there is nothing so characteristic of our world as its instability and uncertainty. Is there anything more wonderful than to know that, at any moment, we can enter into the presence of One who is everlastingly the same ... [James 1:17] ... the same in His might, His majesty, His glory, His love, His mercy, His compassion, and the same in all that He has promised! Do you not understand this man now? ‘I do not care about the others’, he says; ‘but I, as for me, nearness to God is good for me.’ Let us think more about God. Let us meditate upon Him; let us turn our minds and our hearts towards Him. Let us realize that in Christ He offers us His fellowship, His companionship, and that constantly and always.

Faith on Trial, p. 121