“The
mortal will be swallowed up in ________”.
Most people think that “death” is the word that completes
that sentence. However, in
2 Corinthians 5:4, the apostle
Paul says that the mortal will be swallowed up by “life”. That seems like an odd word
choice, but the
point is that death is not the end.
Rather,
death is the beginning of our real and best life.
To illustrate, Paul
says, “We
know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a
building from
God, an eternal home, not built by hands” (2 Corinthians 5:1). For anyone who has ever gone
tenting, this
comparison makes sense.
I love tenting! I think that is great that
you can take your
entire sleeping quarters and roll them up into a tiny ball. Tenting is really fun - for
about three
days. After that, sleeping
on the ground
does not seem fun anymore. Walking a block or more to get water or
to go to the
washroom becomes inconvenient. A
tent makes
you feel like you are outside in the elements even when you are
inside, so you
notice the wind and the cold a lot more.
In the end, it is nice to go home to a solid structure that
has running
water, soft beds and heat. Tenting
is
ok, but is not as good as your real home.
Similarly, Paul is
not saying
that this life is meaningless or bad. In
fact, there are many good things to be enjoyed here. It’s just that this life is
not all that
there is and it is not even the best life that we will experience. We make a huge mistake when
we say, “Live
your best life” as if being self-indulgent here is going to make
us happy. It never does,
because temporary things
cannot provide permanent happiness.
We
were created to live for something much bigger and better than
ourselves.
Therefore, our focus
is not to be
on the tent that we see, but rather on heaven and the much better
home that we
do not yet see. That new
home will not
be a temporary, wind-blown and cold tent-like structure, but
rather a
permanent, solid, wonderful place built by God.
Understanding that one truth changes how we approach
everything else.
“We walk by faith, not sight”
(2 Corinthians
5:7).
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