Our Heavenly Dwelling

2 Corinthians 5:1-5

Sometime it's fun to look at fabulous homes on TV or the internet and imagine.

Well just imagine that you are having someone build you a beautiful home and that you are fully trusting this builder to prepare a place which is absolutely suited to your highest hopes.

It would be a place where your every need and every holy desire would be met. Where you would live without pain, discomfort, sorrow or injustice. A home where you are surrounded by holy and happy people in whose company you do not grow weary.  A home where the scenery is breathtaking in every direction without a horizon to block your view.

Now we know that in this world there is no one who could possibly build you such a home and if there was, you and I probably could not afford it. Yet there is One who is building us such a home in heaven and of course, I am speaking of God through Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul said it is "a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." (2 Corinthians 5:1-5)

Jesus tells us that in fact, there are already rooms prepared, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?" (John 14:1-2)

Now what Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5 is not that God is still building this home, rather it is already built and He is preparing the occupants for this fabulous home to live there eternally. He wrote in verses 2 through 4,

"For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life."

Everyone wants a home with a view of the ocean or a river, so along with all this, Jesus promises us a view of the river of the water of life,

"Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever." (Revelation 22:1-5)

Brethren, we can spend our time imagining a home that we can see here below, which very few will ever own for a few brief years, or we can place our divinely guaranteed hope in Our Father in Heaven in a home that is beyond imagination, yet very real and very eternal above. Paul wrote,

 "He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee." (2 Corinthians 5:5)

We'll be so thrilled to walk through the door!