April 13, 2009 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:10

Living By Faith ~2 Corinthians 4:16-5:10~
So we do not give up. Our physical body is becoming older and weaker, but our spirit inside us is made new every day. We have small troubles for a while now, but they are helping us gain an eternal glory that is much greater than the troubles. We set our eyes not on what we see but on what we cannot see. What we see will last only a short time, but what we cannot see will last forever. We know that our body--the tent we live in here on earth--will be destroyed. But when that happens, God will have a house for us. It will not be a house made by human hands; instead, it will be a home in heaven that will last forever. But now we groan in this tent. We want God to give us our heavenly home, because it will clothe us so we will not be naked. While we live in this body, we have burdens, and we groan. We do not want to be naked, but we want to be clothed with our heavenly home. Then this body that dies will be fully covered with life. This is what God made us for, and he has given us the Spirit to be a guarantee for this new life. So we always have courage. We know that while we live in this body, we are away from the Lord. We live by what we believe, not by what we can see. So I say that we have courage. We really want to be away from this body and be at home with the Lord. Our only goal is to please God whether we live here or there, because we must all stand before Christ to be judged. Each of us will receive what we should get--good or bad--for the things we did in the earthly body.

Living by faith is hard, but that's what we need to do. Honestly, we can't physically see/hear/touch God as we can with those things of this world, but He expects us to believe. Although our physical bodies might be tired, drained, exhausted, and etc., our hearts, our spiritual bodies are being renewed, being recharged. That is because we are not fixing our eyes on the temporary things of this Earth, but on what's to come, eternal glory! We need to be building up treasures in Heaven. Looking forward at what's to come, to serve Him in His Kingdom.

Overall, what Paul is trying to say is that we need not to lose heart!!! No matter how hard it is here on Earth, on matter how burdened, troubled, drained, exhausted, turmoiled, and etc. we are, we need to believe. We need to have that courage and joy, because we have God. So while on Earth, do whatever to please God, and then once we get there, we can please God again!