I an honoured to be able to share here a post from my friend Dan Shaffer. While Jesus’s Resurrection does promise an eternal life after we die (“Because I live, you also will live” – John 14:19), there is so much more to the Gospel than that.
Kingdom life is about living in His Kingdom in the here and now, bringing forward into our lives now the benefits of living in His Presence.
Over to Dan; listen to what he has to say:
This is a glorious time in human history. The spirit of God is moving tremendously as a strong breeze, flowing in and through our hearts as he reveals the loving nature of God.
Whether intentional or not, religion has long suppressed the life internally given by God and revealed through Jesus.
Contrary to what many have been taught, Jesus revealed more about the here and now, than the latter. He graciously offered encouragement and hope of how to handle life, starting with what the Heavenly Father thinks about us.
Eternal life was offered as life eternal for the here and now, not for some future event after we die. Of course there is an afterlife, but that is in “tomorrow’s” that we need not worry about. (Matt 6:25)
How can I emphatically state that eternal life is now? Listen to this from the lips of Jesus in John 17:2-3 :
“For you granted him [Jesus] authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: That they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
Jesus is talking about himself in the third person saying God has granted him authority to give eternal life to All as created beings of God. Jesus then explicitly states what eternal life is: Knowing the true God, and Jesus himself.
“Knowing” is the Greek word “ginōskōsin” which is the same word used when Mary was conceived by God, meaning the utmost intimacy. This is not about the afterlife, but being impregnated by God in our present life with his life and eternal spirit.
Still have doubts about eternal life being now? Did Jesus wish to take us out of the world to join him?
No!
In the same chapter (John 17:15) Jesus says this: “My prayer is Not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from evil.”
Life that is eternal through the Spirit is offered to us right now, when we really need it.
Jesus offered this eternal life to us as an awakening and awareness journey of that which we already are – sons and daughters given of God. Jesus embraced and blessed our humanity through the Incarnation of himself, and demonstration of our path in life of knowing the true Father.
Jesus did not come to give hope of an afterlife, but the promise of an abundant eternal life now:
“I have come that they may have life, and Life more abundantly”.
God’s spirit within is eternal. When we seek the Kingdom of God within us, we tap into the spring of living water that continuously flows for eternity. We become immersed in the river of oneness, where our thirst is forever quenched.
The oneness with the Father and Jesus was offered to us as well:
“…Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:21)
Welcome to Eternal Life that is Life Eternally right now,
We are in it, within it, to win it.
– Dan Shaffer
Thank you so much for sharing this brother!
I’m honored and surprised.
Well I thought it was brilliant 🙂 Thanks for writing it!