John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have ternal life.

In today’s churches, this verse has almost become a cliché. But maybe there’s more to this verse than meets the eye – look at the following verse: 

John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

John 17 records one of the most intimate prayers in the entire Bible. Jesus is praying to the Father for Himself, his disciples and all the believers. And He describes eternal life as “Knowing God”. Let’s substitute this into our opening verse (John 3:16) and see what we get:

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but KNOW GOD. 

Eternal Life Is to Know Jesus!

This means Eternal Life is now! Even though having our sin forgiven was necessary for us to be restored unto God (because God could not fellowship with us in our fallen state), this was just a by-product of the main reason we were saved: To have fellowship with the Father, who sent the Darling of heaven to be slaughtered on a cross, so you and I could walk again with Him in intimacy and unbroken fellowship, restoring to us all the virtue and glory that Adam and Eve had lost in paradise. 

God desires you; not your money, your service, your sacrifices or your efforts to be holy. You see, when He has you, you will automatically yield all these things unto Him.

This is the greatest and highest purpose and calling in life: To know the Father.

How well we know God is one of the very few things in our Christian walk that is determined by the time we put in. And again, we do this not to earn His approval, we do it because He already approves of us, having removed the accusations of the law against us (Gal 3:13), and made us righteous (meaning we are for ever “right” with God) (Rom 5:17) so we can boldly enter into His presence with confidence (Heb 4:16) not because we deserve it, but because Jesus deserved it for us.