And

"This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ," John 17:3.

A whole lot of religious sentiment in this old world finds its summary in the first of those phrases: life is to know. Jesus refines the summary: to know God. Jesus refines it more: eternal. Eternal life is to know God. He refines it finer: the true God. Eternal life is to know the true God. Yet more detail: the only. Eternal life is to know the only true God. Still more personal: you. Eternal life is to know You, the only true God. So: True God, not false god. The Only, not one among others. You, not impersonal. So there we have it all. Oh! Wait! and, too: (eternal life is also) to know Jesus Christ. And these refinements separate the world's chaff from the Spirit's wheat.

We visit with a brother or sister today, to share in knowing God, and Jesus. And, grateful together, we rejoice that eternal life rests in God, and in his Christ, whom he sent us that we may know him.