To Encourage You

2 Corinthians 5:1-2 “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling.”

As the years go by, I become more and more aware of the frailty of this human body.  Seems it was just yesterday that I was running around a football field, hitting and being hit, yet going on as if nothing had happened.  Do that today, and a hospital stay would be in the offing, I’m sure.  Then as I look around at my family and friends, it seems like every day brings a report of a new illness, injury, or worse.  Which brings me to the passage above about our human body, here described as a “tent.”  Tents are temporary. They are flimsy, subject to the whims of nature.  Put one up in the woods somewhere and do nothing more to it. Soon it will be threadbare, torn, falling apart.  What an apt metaphor for this body of ours. 

But then one of the great promises God has given every believer is  that there is coming a day when this temporary earthly “tent” will be replaced by an eternal “building” in the heavens.  While death is a certainty for every Christian (unless the Lord returns first), it is just as certain that we will receive a new body one day.  1 Corinthians 15 describes that body in detail.  It tells us that it will be as superior to our current body as a plant is superior to the seed from which it originated.  In Psalm 1 we are told that we shall be “like a tree planted by rivers of water.”  What a picture of strength as a replacement for the frailty that plagues us now.  It’s the promise of healing that accompanies salvation, both the inner spiritual healing that comes to us the moment we are saved and the eternal healing of our bodies that is promised for us in heaven.  It’s an awesome thing.  It’s a sure thing, guaranteed by the Great Physician.  However,  this wonderful promise is limited to those who “have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” (1 Peter 2:23). 

So, does that describe you?  Do you have this eternal hope of complete healing and renewed strength that surpasses by far anything you’ve ever known?  If not, what are you hoping for? As your body trends downhill (and they all do), what are your prospects? If you have terminal cancer, is that all there is for you? Are you hoping against hope that a cure is just around the corner?  But even if there is, then what?  As you watch your parents’ bodies and minds deteriorate in their old age, do you see your own future as inevitably trending in the same way, or for some reason do you think you’ll be different, beating the odds in one way or another.   

You see, there is something better, much better, guaranteed by the promises of God to His children.  If you know Him, a new body is coming, an eternal body that will never die or be subject to frailty in any way. If you know Him you can be sure that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). But if not, if you don’t know Him, you can be sure that what you see now is as good as it gets, for the miseries of an eternity without Christ will not be worthy to be compared with the miseries you may be enduring now. 

Do you want an eternal building or a temporary tent?  And unlike the future condition of our earthly body, where despite every effort we may make to “take care of ourselves,” the ultimate destiny of our body is largely out of our hands, a new body is within our control, for its all rooted in whether or not we choose to put our faith in the God Who is the only One Who has the power to provide it to us. 

Seems like such a simple choice, doesn’t it?  What will your choice be?