What really is "eternal life?" Eternal life is knowing God. When you know Him through accepting Jesus as your Lord, He gives you eternal life.
But once you know Him and you have eternal life, the next step is to develop a relationship with Him. It makes good sense that if you are going to spend an eternity with someone, wouldn't you agree that it is important to know who they are? After all, when you really know something about an individual and when you really find out who they are, then you can love them on a more intimate level.
Now prayer is the way that you get to know God.
For example, I preface this by saying that we teach at our church that for teens, male/female relationships should not exist, because they distract the individuals from getting a good start in life. But, eventually as adults you will have a male/female relationship with someone.
So, if you are going to have a relationship with someone there are certain things you do to develop that relationship. You spend time together. You talk to them on the phone. You can't wait to see them. The result is a tight intimate relationship.
Now your focus today, as a teen, should be on developing your relationship with God. You do that by talking to Him first thing in the morning, spending time with Him in prayer, praise and worship. When you are on your way to school, you're talking to Him and listening to Him. Why, because you love Him so. The result is a tight intimate relationship with the Father.
It is then that you can say, "Make heaven open in my life Father. Do everything that you can do in my life." So now, instead of hearing about how good God is, you will experience for yourself that God is good to you. You won't just know about God, you will know Him as your very own Father.
Scripture Reference: Philippians 3:10; John 17:21-22
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