Monday, August 4, 2025

         The Bible says, “for no matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ Jesus” (2 Corinthians 1:20).  As you might know, Paul wrote these words—under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  We learn some important truths in just these few words.  All Scripture is God-breathed and useful to and profitable for us.  First, we learn that God makes promises.  He is both a promise-maker and a promise-keeper.  God is real.  His character and ways stand as the authority behind the promises that He makes and keeps. Second, God’s promises are personally made to us.  He does not make promises idly or in a vacuum.  He makes general promises to people as a whole (such as the promise not to flood the world again).  He makes promises to His people in particular (such as the promise of everlasting life through Christ).  Third, God’s promises have a fulfillment date—they are yes in Christ Jesus.  God makes and keeps some promises for life here-and-now.  But He also makes promises for eternity and the life that His people will one day gain forever.
            We live on earth in anticipation of eternity.  This world is not the end.  This world is not our final home and destiny.  Again, writing to the Corinthians, Paul reminds us of a powerful promise from the Lord, “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands” (2 Corinthians 5:1).  Paul wrote with conviction.  He wrote, “for we know.”  About this we can be confident—and supremely so.  The promise of eternity is more real than anything we can see, hear or handle today.  The “earthly tent” that Paul mentioned is our human bodies.  These bodies will wear out eventually.  They are unable to last for thousands and millions of years.  Our present bodies are subject to aging, disease, disability and accidents.  Even those who live past the century mark will not live endlessly year after year.  There is an end for these human bodies.
            Paul compared our human bodies and earthly lives to a “tent.”  Most of us would not regard a “tent” as a long-term dwelling that continues for decades or centuries.  A tent is a temporary home at best.  It provides short-term shelter until we return to our homes or apartments.  Likewise, this lifetime is but a prelude to what awaits.  These bodies and our lives are living in anticipation of what God has prepared for us in eternity.  We will one day receive resurrected bodies, eternal bodies, that will be suitable for life with the Lord and the new heaven and earth that await us.  We live with some thoughts about eternity and even anticipation of what it will be like.  But God has already planned and designed eternity and the new life that awaits—far better than our eyes can see, ears can hear or minds can conceive. 
            The great evangelist Dwight L. Moody was once asked about death.  He responded with a reference to the eternal life that awaited him and awaits all believers today.  Moody said, “Soon you will read in the papers that Moody is dead.  Don’t believe it.  For in that moment, I will be more alive than I have ever been.”  100 % true.  We do not know all there is to know about the life that awaits us in eternity.  But we do know that God keeps His promises and that He has already designed something far beyond our human minds and imaginations.  Multiply your greatest moments many, many times and you will have some sense of what awaits.  There are loved ones, friends and family members who have already gone on to receive these blessings and realize the fulfillment of these promises.  And today, we live in anticipation of the same.  Live with joy today—for what you have now is no comparison for what is coming!