ETERNAL LIFE OF GOD

THE ETERNAL LIFE OF GOD
Becoming like Jesus is not something that happens without effort; becoming like Jesus takes discipline and it takes having a passion for the task, and having a passion for the task, is simply having a passion for the relationship we have in Christ and with Christ.
The men and the women who walked with Jesus in His earthly ministry understood that discipline; they understood the passion and they understood the price it took for that passion.
This is what the writer of 1 John is saying to us, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life…”
What does he mean here “the Word of life…?” He is simply saying that Jesus is the divine expression of the eternal life of God. This word life here is the Greek word Zoe; Zoe was a word that was used to say God life or eternal life. This life is far from being carnal or limited as the human life is; this life is not measured by days as the earthy is, it is measured by the quality and strength of the eternal being of God.
John tells us that they heard Him with their ears; saw Him with their eyes as they looked upon Him. They experienced first hand this life of God sent from heaven; a life God intended for us to learn and to have as our own. He goes on to say, “For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew you unto that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us...”
Jesus, the eternal life of God has given us the power to become the sons of God. The eternal life of God is a person living inside us; it is not a life after death distantly waiting for us to encounter when we die. The eternal is as much before as it is after, before or after has no claim to eternal; the eternal gives us what we never had and what we could not have before it came. The life of God is God life being manifested in us in the present as we learn Jesus and become what we learn in and through Him.