Eternal Life; Buy tickets here?

2 Peter 3:8 "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day."

Huh? Living on Earth it is difficult wrapping our minds around eternity, or even trying to live out a life of eternal thinking. Especially in our generation that has been equated with the "microwave oven syndrome" (wanting everything now!), but as disciples we are called to eternal thinking

Colossians 3:2 "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things."

So how do we switch our mind sets in a world that is jealous for consuming our thoughts?

In Hebrews 12 Paul tells us to look upon the one whose jealousy for our heart is greater.
"2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³"Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."

There is a definite danger in applying our world ideals onto God's eternal ones. I was just thinking about how in our lives we are so geared to think about destinations. Our drive comes from goals, and satisfaction from achieving those goals. Goals aren't a bad thing, but what are we really trying to accomplish in following Jesus?

Our goal in living a life as a follower of Jesus should not be to reach a destination. Jesus, God in the flesh, was not humiliated and brutally put to death on the cross solely to give us a ticket stub to heaven. Though through his death accompanied by faith we are given eternal life, eternal life does not equal entry into heaven, In John 17 while Jesus is praying to Father he defines eternal life as this
³"Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."

Our goal is to get to know our creator and fall madly in love with Him. As cliche as this sounds it truly is more of the journey than the destination! This is such an important thing to know when we decide to totally give our lives to Christ (me a couple of months ago) or like now as a follower of Jesus, relearning and walking this out day to day. The Lord truly wants to give us more, the question is are we willing to follow/seek Him to get it?

So what's my point? If you know who Jesus is, but haven't gone into really knowing Him on a relationship bases, why wait another day? Tap deeper into the tree of life and discover the sweetness of eternal living; peace, kindness, joy, hope ... He longs to have an authentic relationship with you where He can overwhelm you with His love. Where in some crazy way your desires become His, your life gets turned upside down (for the better) and your mission is to selflessly serve to accomplish His mission. And to those on this great/crazy journey following Jesus, it always great to recharge and remember what our goal truly is ; ].

-With crazy love, Stephanie