OUR GLORIFIED BODIES

October 26 

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.  2 Corinthians 5:1

How often does the senior man or woman long to get across to a teenager or young adult that they do not have all the time in the world. Our lives are truly short. We are like a vapor which is there one moment and gone the next (James 4:14). Our time on this earth is like grass or a flower which is blown away by the wind (Psa. 103:15-16).  

As we get older our bodies get weaker. We have more and more physical problems. Dr’s visits come with greater and greater frequency. All are reminders that we cannot always do the things we used to do in the prime of life. One day we will leave this world. Are we ready for that? 

The Bible compares our body to a house or a tent, something that wasn’t always there in the past until it was built. A point will come in the future when it will no longer be standing. For the non-believer these thoughts are crushingly depressing. All negative. But for the Christian we simply look to a bright and blessed future provided by our God.  

When our earthly house “is destroyed,” that is, when we die, we are not destined to roam eternally without a body. There is a resurrection body which the Lord provides so we can live on in that body for all eternity.  

What happens when the Christian dies? “We are of good courage and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). There we remain until the time of the resurrection and rapture (1 Thess. 4:16-17; 1 Cor. 15). Praise God for a future resurrection body! 

Matt Foreman