GodSprings - March 07, 2016

How Can I Live for Eternal Home?

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Corinthians 5:1 (NIV)

Waiting outside an operation theatre there is one sentence we don’t want to hear from the doctor and that is, “There is nothing else we can do, except to make you as comfortable as possible in the time you have left.” We ourselves are afraid of death and at the same time we are fearful of our near and dear one’s going through this journey. Yet our fear doesn’t matter since we all have to go through this.

The Apostle Paul was no stranger to persecution; he faced death on a daily basis. Knowing that any day could be his last, Paul still had confidence that transcended his circumstances; his confidence was in God and not in circumstances. Paul traded what he did not know about his future for what he did know about God. This gave him the strength to live courageously for Christ, even in the face of death.

Paul tells us that our current body is nothing more than a tent, a temporary dwelling that believers will trade in for a permanent, heavenly home that God is preparing for us: a glorified body, insusceptible to sin, disease, and death. Until that day, God has given all who trust in Christ everything we need for godly living through His Holy Spirit. He is our proof of purchase, our guarantee of a new home in Heaven. Paul declared every believer is guaranteed the hope and confidence that death will lead to an immediate passage into the very presence of Christ. The confidence of our future in heaven with God should be a source of strength and a motivation to live a life that that is well pleasing to God.

For the believer, death is not to be feared, because only through death are we fully released from the restrictions of these bodies into the riches of our heavenly habitations. For believers in Christ, the how and when of our physical death does not limit our ability to live with a courageous faith each and every day, even in the toughest trials, because the light of God’s grace will always outshine the darkest of circumstances.

This is how we can walk through battling cancer with dignity, grace, and confidence. This is how Paul was able to face persecution and eventually execution with boldness. Faith trusts in the promises of God, faith waits patiently for the eternity that lay ahead, and faith knows that all pain is temporary. Faith in the face of death empowers us to live courageously because of our heavenly confidence.