This Is Eternal Life - The One Year Unlocking the Bible Devotional
This Is Eternal Life
If you don’t personally go with us, don’t make us leave this place. Exodus 33:15
While God was giving the Ten Commandments to Moses at the top of Mount Sinai, his people were rebelling down below. This caused a breach in the relationship, and God told the people that they could go up to Canaan, but his presence would not go with them.
God was offering them a life of freedom and prosperity in a land of abundance, and the only thing that would be missing was the presence of God with them. But when God’s people heard this, they mourned. They were cut to the heart because they had seen something of God’s glory and could not face the thought of life without him (see Exodus 33:3-4).
They knew that even the freedom and abundance of life in Canaan could not satisfy the hunger in their souls if God was not with them. So Moses went up the mountain and said to God, “If you don’t personally go with us, don’t make us leave this place” (Exodus 33:15). If it came down to a choice, they would rather have God without Canaan than Canaan without God. Would you have made that choice?
Rediscovering a taste for fellowship with God is one of the greatest needs of our time. It is not unusual to hear testimonies of people who have professed faith in Christ that appear to amount to little more than a desire to avoid hell. The decision is announced with the smugness of a person who has just picked a winner at the races.
Jesus defined eternal life as a relationship with God. If we asked a hundred people to complete the sentence, “This is eternal life: _______” many would say, “to be in heaven” or “to never die.” But Jesus said, “This is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3, NIV).
The purpose of the gospel is to bring us out of condemnation and into this fellowship with God. This has always been central to the purpose of God. If you do not have fellowship with God, you have missed what the Bible is about.
For further reading, see John 17
