A Home Secured - Himalayan Heights - April 23 Readings: 2 Corinthians 5:1-5 – Eternal Down Payment

Himalayan Heights: 2 Corinthians 4-5

All Scripture is God-breathed and useful, but there are some Scriptures that we can consider the Himalayan mountaintops of the Bible. In the next few months we will be looking at a series of great texts that inspire and move us - the "Himalayan Heights" of God's Word.

Today's Reading:  2 Corinthians 4-5

Read 2 Corinthians  4-5 if you can. The focus passage today is 2 Corinthians 5:1-5.

For we know that if our earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal dwelling in the heavens, not made with hands. 2 Indeed, we groan in this tent, desiring to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 since, when we are clothed we will not be found naked. 4 Indeed, we groan while we are in this tent, burdened as we are, because we do not want to be unclothed but clothed, so that mortality may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now the one who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a down payment.

Through the Bible Readings: 1 Samuel 5-6, Luke 15:1–10, Psalm 50:18–23, Proverbs 11:17-18

If you wish to read through the Bible in a year, follow these readings. 

Devotional: A Home Secured

A popular innovation in recent years has been the so-called "Reader's Bibles" - Bibles that have no chapter and verse divisions. They are a great way to read the Bible straight through and get the overview. But they also remind us that chapter and verse division are tremendously helpful. We have a tendency, here at the start of chapter 5, to assume that a new topic is being introduced because of the chapter division. It is not so.

Verses 16-18 of chapter 4 tell us not to lose heart because of the eternal weight of glory that is coming, which will make our "light and momentary sufferings" seem like nothing. Paul then begins to talk about our "earthly tent" and our "eternal dwelling" while also mixing in a metaphor about clothing.

I've never been much of a camper - living in a tent holds small appeal to me. A tent is a temporary dwelling in which you reside while you are roughing it away from your home. You spend a night, or two, or a few nights in the tent, then you go home to you comfortable bed. It is possible that Paul was calling to mind the picture of the tabernacle of God in the wilderness.

This body is a tent, a home for my spirit and soul while I await my eternal dwelling with God. Sometimes, that tent is uncomfortable and I groan. Sickness makes me groan. The struggles of this world against sin, against temptation, against the lies of Satan, against the world's ways, all of these make me groan. It is often a burden living in this tent, but thank God, this tent is not our eternal home. We have an eternal dwelling secured for us by the blood of Christ on the Cross and we can look forward to that.

Verse 5 has a strange metaphor, a mind-blowingly strange one. What do you do when you purchase a home? You make a downpayment right? To secure the home, to show you are earnest in your intent, you put some money down. We are receiving an eternal home in heaven and there needs to be a downpayment made, but this is where God blows our minds. We do not make the downpayment, GOD DOES! He gives us the Holy Spirit as a downpayment on our eternal home. What an act of grace!

God not only provides for us an eternal dwelling in glory, but puts down the earnest money to secure the home and assure us that it will one day be ours. As we walk through this world, as we groan in our tents, suffering and struggling, we know that the Holy Spirit in us is God's promise that he will finish what he started.

Father, on days that my body aches and my soul groans, I thank you for the glorious truth that you have provided a home in heaven for me and that you've given me the Spirit as a downpayment, assuring that you will finish in me what you started!

Think and Pray:

Are you groaning in your "tent" (your life in this world) today?
How does it change things knowing that you have a glorious home in heaven awaiting  you?
Meditate on the idea that God himself pays the downpayment on your home in heaven!