John 17

Yesterday was my 34 year anniverary of my wedding day. On my wedding day, I thought I knew my wife. I had learned a great deal about her and her family. But now after these many years, I recognize now that I am just beginning to really know her.

I now think that really coming to know someone requires more than knowing of, bu requires one to live with, become like, and do things with - "live in one shoes". In other words, become more like them.

In what some have come to define as the Savior's great intercessory prayer, He said -

"...this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." (New Testament | John 17:3)

One of God's name is the "Eternal Father" -

"...for Endless is my name." (Doctrine and Covenants | Section 19:10)

Therefore God's life is eternal life or life eternal. As we take on the name of Christ and live our lives as He lives His, we begin to take on "life eternal" and come to know Him. It is not enough just to come to know about Him, His life, and commandments. We must become like Him to know Him. Elder Bruce R. McConkie commented -

"It is one thing to know about God and another to know him. We know about him when we learn that he is a personal being in whose image man is created; when we learn that the Son is in the express image of his Father's person; when we learn that both the Father and the Son possess certain specified attributes and powers. But we know them, in the sense of gaining eternal life, when we enjoy and experience the same things they do. To know God is to think what he thinks, to feel what he feels, to have the power he possesses, to comprehend the truths he understands, and to do what he does. Those who know God become like him, and have his kind of life, which is eternal life." (DNTC 1:762.)