A Building From God

 

A Building From God 

For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven. . . Therefore being always of good courage and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. . .we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and be at home with the Lord—2 Corinthians 5:1-8. 

It seems that I am at a point in my life where I find myself thinking about this passage from 2 Corinthians 5 quite often. When you read these words, what do they say to you? Allow me to tell you what they say to me. 

They tell me that there is coming a day in which my physical body will be finished, I will lay it down and move out to a home that has been prepared for me (John 14:1-3). They tell me that in this life I will groan and be burdened as a result of afflictions that will bring disappointments, pain, heartache and sorrow into my life. They tell me that when I move out of this earthly house, I will have a body, not made with hands that will not be subjected to those afflictions that cause groaning and unlike this earthly body, that heavenly body will be eternal. They tell me that this old sinful, wicked world is not my home—I am simply passing through it on my way to my eternal home and that to be at home with the Lord is far greater than to be at home in this earthly body. They tell me that a better day is coming! Today, the thought overwhelms me that one day I want to stand in the midst of that eternal home not made by hands and simply say, it sure is good to be home. 

 If we live another day, month or years, it will only be a short time when considered with the eternity to which we are going. Psalms 90:9-10 tells us that the days of our years are 70, maybe even 80, those years will be labour and sorrow and soon cut off and we will fly away. When I think about the days of our years being 70 or 80, it hits me like a ton of bricks that in just a couple of days I will turn 91 years of age which tells me that I am way past my expiration day. 

I am thankful for all these years of life and even though there is a longing on my part to be clothed with that heavenly dwelling, there is also a part of me that wants to live on planet earth just a little longer. I am human and I have loved ones that I want to be with as long as possible. Not only that, I want to continue in this life with the hope and desire to in some small way influence many people to glorify the Lord (Matthew 5:16, Philippians 1:21-24). How do you feel about your life? 

In my collection of sermons, I have one titled, Death: When, Where, How, Then. We do not need to be anxious about the when, where or how of death. It is the "then" that should be our major concern because that is all about what happens after we walk through the door of death out into eternity (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14, 2 Corinthians 5:10, 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9). Yesterday is gone forever, tomorrow may never come, all we have is this present moment of time and it can end in a blink of an eye. Live today in a way that you can with confidence say, I know if my earthly house is torn down, I have a building from God to which I am going. 

Charles Hicks