{"id":1409,"date":"2014-07-23T12:25:50","date_gmt":"2014-07-23T16:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/?p=1409"},"modified":"2014-07-23T12:25:50","modified_gmt":"2014-07-23T16:25:50","slug":"eternal-life-begins-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2014\/07\/eternal-life-begins-today.html","title":{"rendered":"Eternal Life Begins Today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A religious expert came up to Jesus and asked him a question. It\u00a0was a loaded one. &#8220;How does one inherit eternal life?&#8221;\u00a0He was quizing Jesus and hoping to humiliate Him in public. It didn&#8217;t work. Jesus didn&#8217;t need to hear Himself talk, so, in his usual fashion, he turned the question around and had the &#8220;expert&#8221; answer\u00a0it himself.<\/p>\n<p>Jesus took him back to the source, the law of Moses and asked him how he interepts it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. And love others as you love yourself.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Correct. Do this and you will LIVE,&#8221; was Jesus&#8217; simple reply.<\/p>\n<p>Jesus is indicating that eternal life needn&#8217;t be postponed until some future date with death. It can begin today. Jesus is referring to living in the <em>Zoe<\/em>\u00a0sense of the word &#8212; a life that is to be enjoyed, relished, experienced fully, blessed, strong, efficient and endless in the Kingdom of God.<\/p>\n<p>Today is the first day of the rest of Eternity. Love God, Love Others and Live Well.<\/p>\n<p><em>Father,<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Teach me to love you with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. Keep me focused on Your great love and power. May I love you energetically and with enthusiasm. Teach me to love others as much as I love myself. How often I overlook my errors; teach me to look the other way when I perceive error in others. How often I forgive myself for my mistakes; teach me to give others the same grace I give myself. I feed, clothe, and carefully maintain what I so generously allow to be mine; give me the wherewithal to do the same for others, giving away some of what I have to meet their needs.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Then I will learn to truly live as you have designed life to be &#8212; full, abundant with blessings and\u00a0brimming over with\u00a0your joy.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>In Jesus&#8217; Name, Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A religious expert came up to Jesus and asked him a question. It\u00a0was a loaded one. &#8220;How does one inherit eternal life?&#8221;\u00a0He was quizing Jesus and hoping to humiliate Him in public. It didn&#8217;t work. Jesus didn&#8217;t need to hear Himself talk, so, in his usual fashion, he turned the question around and had the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":478,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[547,549,551,499,552,548,373,546,550],"class_list":["post-1409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abundant-life","tag-blessed","tag-eternal-life","tag-joy-2","tag-kingdom-of-god","tag-life-as-it-was-meant-to-be","tag-love-god","tag-love-others","tag-zoe"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Eternal Life Begins Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2014\/07\/eternal-life-begins-today.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eternal Life Begins Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A religious expert came up to Jesus and asked him a question. It\u00a0was a loaded one. &#8220;How does one inherit eternal life?&#8221;\u00a0He was quizing Jesus and hoping to humiliate Him in public. It didn&#8217;t work. 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