Our Heavenly Portion

Uplook – July/August 2019 — Grace & Truth Magazine

Our Heavenly Portion

For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. —2  Corinthians 5:1-8 NKJV

This passage, sometimes shared at believers’ funerals, tells us about the place in which we live now: an earthly dwelling, referred to as a “tent.” A tent is something temporary – and as I get older I realize that more and more. The passing character of what is earthly can be recognized in a song written by Ira Stanphill: “I don’t know about tomorrow / I just live from day to day / I don’t borrow from its sunshine / For its skies may turn to gray.” Paul, in 2 Corinthians 5, wrote about the destruction or dissolving of this tent. That is the natural death of the believer.

However, hope is not lost, for Paul continued by speaking of a permanent “building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (v.1). We are simply not yet entirely fitted for that house. God-given clothing is necessary, for without it we would be “naked” (v.3) or “unclothed” (v.4). The apostle wrote that we are waiting for the time when mortality is “swallowed up by life” (v.4). The Word of Truth for us is that the Holy Spirit is our guarantee that all will happen as God has said (v.5).

While “we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord” (v.6). At this time “we walk by faith, not by sight” (v.7). Paul’s desires did not end there, nor should ours. Paul was confident and looking forward, instead, to be “absent from the body and to be present with the Lord” (v.8). As he waited for that moment he remained faithful, well pleasing to Him.

Unlike what we sometimes hear, we do not read of a desire by Paul or anyone else in the Bible to run around heaven looking up friends. The only thought presented is to be “with the Lord.” Other people have suggested that once we die we are given a temporary body, but that is not taught in Scripture either. The truth is found in 1 Corinthians 15:51-58, when, “in a twinkling of an eye,” believers will all be changed, corruptible putting on incorruption, and mortal putting on immortality. Death will be swallowed up in victory! Our new house is that which is incorruptible. I look forward to that house, do you?

“The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Th. 4:16-17). These words bring comfort to the believer (v.18).

Oh, what it will be to “be with the Lord”!

By Curt Darling