Do you like tent camping? It used to be a passion of ours to camp in some primitive or semi-primitive area, away from life’s busyness and surrounded by the full extent of God’s creation. But sometimes, it wasn’t all we had hoped for, like the time near Cradle Mountain in Tasmania, when we discovered a two man mountain tent wasn’t really built for two people, especially when Marcia was pregnant with our first child! Or the night at Jindabyne, Australia where we found ourselves surprised by an unpredicted snowfall (Yes, it was the Snowy Mountain range) and we groaned all night as our teeth chattered. Or at the Craggs, Colorado, near Pike’s peak when we discovered our tent wasn’t nearly as waterproof as we thought. Or the night in South Dakota when the tornado siren went off and we were wondering if the tent pegs would hold firm in the storm. Yes, sometimes tenting was fun, but sometimes we groaned a lot and longed for our permanent home!

 

Actually, that is precisely how Paul describes our present life, as an “earthly tent” that groans and longs for our “heavenly dwelling”, our permanent “building from God.” It was actually God’s design that we live here for a “short” while.  Just as we never dreamed of making our tenting site our permanent home, God doesn’t intend for us to become too attached to “home” in this world. Why? Because it isn’t our real home! (2 Corinthians 5)

 

But what we do with our bodies and our lives does matter to God. In fact, Paul writes there will come a time when all believers will appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ. It will be a time of giving account of how we lived our lives (2 Corinthians 5:10, Romans 14:10-12). Rather than being a time of judging salvation, maybe it’s best to think of it as a time of rewards for a life lived well. It will be a measuring of our faith in serving Christ, in being his ambassador, in carrying out his Great Commission, in disciplining ourselves to achieve victory our sin’s temptations, and how well we controlled our tongues when we interacted with others. Everything that we wasted in life will be consumed and destroyed, but everything that was done intentionally for God will stand the test and be preserved.

 

If you’ve ever wondered, “What is my purpose in this life?” Paul answers it clearly in this passage in 2 Corinthians 5. We are called to pitch our earthly tent on the mountain of God so we can be reconciled to him, and once reconciled to make it our focus to implore others to do the same. God doesn’t force us into submission to his way and so neither are we to coerce others. But rather we should live intentionally in such a manner to bear witness to his power to make us into “new creations” transformed by his mercy and grace.

 

We’re advised to not become too comfortable in this life. Our earthly tent is not our permanent home. The degree to which we’re overly comfortable here dulls our sense of longing to be fully at home in the Lord. If we sometimes groan in this earthly tent, it is for a reason. We don’t belong here. Our full reward and greatest joy is yet to be experienced in heaven.

 

But while we are here, “we are Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.” (2 Corinthians 5:20)

 

Don’t waste your life. Live well, filled with his purpose and passion.