We Live by Faih

We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.  So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. (2 Cor 5:7-9)

When Paul wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live,” (Gal. 2:20) it was Saul of Tarsus persecutor of Christians that Paul was talking about. He considered that his old self, trying to live without the true and living God of the universe, was dead, and the new life he was living in the body he lived by faith in Christ. He goes on to say that this new life in Christ is the desire of all God’s children, “for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ,” (Gal. 3:27) and we want to be “…further clothed…” (2 Cor. 5:4 (NKJV)).  That will happen when we get to heaven, for “it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (2 Cor. 5:5(NIV)). Our new self – our true self in Christ – is being formed in us.

The promise to those who put their faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross is that, “ … just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the man from heaven” (1 Cor.15:49). When we are away from our bodies, the image of Christ in us will be fully restored.  Our faith in that promise changes our lives here in our bodies so we live as if we had already received the promise. We live as if we already bear the image of Christ. As the Spirit leads us, our love abounds more and more in knowledge and depth of insight and we rejoice in doing the works God prepared in advance for each of us to do. We want nothing more than to do the very things our Creator and Redeemer designed us to do.  We want to be the very thing we were made for. Paul became the great missionary, church planter, and writer he was because of his faith in the promise. You and I become whatever Christ wants each of us to be in the same way.“So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it” because that is what gives us the most joy. Rejoice!