“That’s why we live with such good cheer. You won’t see us drooping our heads or dragging our feet! Cramped conditions here don’t get us down. They only remind us of the spacious living conditions ahead. It’s what we trust in but don’t yet see that keeps us going. Do you suppose a few ruts in the road or rocks in the path are going to stop us? When the time comes, we’ll be plenty ready to exchange exile for homecoming.” (2 Corinthians 5:6-8 MSG)
There are some who even though they are saved, still question their fate at the end of their life. Most of the confusion is because they don’t realize who they are in Christ. Then there are some who got saved under the pressure of going to hell. Both have never experienced the joy of an eternal salvation right now here on earth which continues and never ends even after leaving our mortal bodies. They are living out their lives contingent to the body being saved instead of the spirit. We are created spiritual beings like God, and are hosted in mortal bodies enabling us to function while here on earth. “For while we are still in this tent, we groan under the burden and sigh deeply (weighed down, depressed, oppressed)—not that we want to put off the body (the clothing of the spirit), but rather that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal (our dying body) may be swallowed up by life [after the resurrection]” (2 Corinthians 5:4). While we are living here on earth we still don’t function as earthly beings, we walk as spiritual beings (Galatians 5:16-17), we still live from heaven to earth with Jesus and the Father “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6 NIV). Peter lets us know that we are aliens on planet earth (1 Peter 2:11), and as strangers, we should not let this world control or dictate how we live our life.
We rejoice because we know that if we are in Christ, and when the eyes of this mortal body shut for the final time, the spiritual eyes remain open and witness our spirit lifting out of the mortal body and the ascension up of our glorified body to the presence of the Lord.
