“Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” (John 5:39). If we were to break down this verse into a logical if/then statement, we might get something like - if ye think on the scriptures, then ye have eternal life. This seems more in keeping with the meaning of Jesus’s words. The more that we search the scriptures and think about them and ponder on them and let their meaning sink deep into our heart, so much so that it passes beyond our verbal or intellectual understanding, then we will truly come to know our Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ. And as Jesus also says elsewhere in the same book of John, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3). The scriptures are full of examples of righteous men and women who faced heart-breaking trials and impossible choices and nevertheless clung to their faith and their covenants and acted in all righteousness and learned and repented from their mistakes and went from grace to grace and endured to the end. The scriptures contain direct guidance and counsel from our Creator and the Savior of the world. And the scriptures contain prophecies for our own lives and for the world at large. If we think on these things and try to apply the lessons, follow the examples, and honor the legacy of faith and mercy that has been passed down to us through the long centuries and millennia, then we will be encoding the laws and glories of Eternal Life and Exaltation deep within our Spiritual DNA so that when we die, having to the best of our ability abided a Celestial Law, we will be ready to inherit a Celestial Kingdom. Reading and searching and thinking on and about the scriptures is not a mere item on a checklist or a hobby or some benign pastime. Thinking on the scriptures opens the gates of Eternal Life. Eternal Life is not something that must be reserved until after our death and resurrection. As we think on the scriptures we can experience a fraction of our Eternal Life right here and right now.
