Woke up this morning not feeling well. No appetite. Very weak. I took some meds and forced myself to eat and drink. The pump was removed at 1pm. Glad to have it off. However, though I'm not 100% I am way better than I was this day in the first cycle of treatment and so I am very thankful for that. Thank you for your prayers. I thank the Lord Jesus for restraining the worst side effects this time. I thank God for his gift of medicine to us and professionals who can help.
Yesterday I referred to 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 in order to see God's purposes in the suffering and thus to show what it is that we should pray for those who are afflicted. Paul continues his thought into chapter 5. When he describes our "outer man" as wasting away he recognizes that all of the physical decline we experience is going to end in our death. The illnesses and accidents and such are all the warnings and precursors to the ultimate death of our physical bodies. So he addresses that very issue as he writes: "For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Our earthly body is compared to a tent, a temporary dwelling place, by Paul whereas our eternal body, our resurrection body is compared to a permanent house which is made by God and is eternal in the heavens.
As Paul said back in Romans 8 we are groaning in this temporary tent body while we wait for our eternal heavenly body. The groaning again pointing to the pain of labor which results in a joyful "birth" into the eternal resurrection existence. In vv. 3-4 Paul tells us that his ultimate ambition is to be clothed with that heavenly dwelling, that eternal resurrection body. What he doesn't want to happen is to be found "naked". He doesn't want to be "unclothed". What is the condition that he would prefer not to experience? AGain, what he wants to be "further clothed so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life."
The point Paul is making is this: the ultimate end of the saving work of Christ is eternal existence with a physical, immortal body in the new heavens and the new earth. Paul knows that if we die prior to the return of Christ, if we leave behind this earthly tent that we will be "naked", "unclothed' that is without a physical existence. We will be disembodied spirits in the presence of the Lord. Now Paul views that existence as superior to living in this earthly tent which is what he says in vv. 6&8. He also makes this very clear in Philippians 1:21-24. However, the ultimate desire of every Christian is for that final vindication when, at the return of Christ, the heavens and the earth are made new and all of God's people receive their resurrectin bodies which we will possess and live in and work in and worship God in and through forever.
This helps us to understand why we so love the physical world and all the beauty and pleasure that is in it. When I think about dying I do think of how I will miss this physical world and all the pleasures it contains, which are all God-given pleasures. Thus as I think of the future a portion of the joy I feel in anticipation of it is that I will one day rise again from the dead with an immortal, physical body and intol a perfect, incorruptible universe where we always enjoy the pleaures of creation as gifts from God and never as competitors for his glory. We will prefectly appreciate the creation and perfectly worship God for it with no ablity to prefer creation to God himeslf. To die and be in the presence of the Lord as a disembodied spirit will be a great thing but not nearly as good as being raised from the dead to live with our resurrected Savior in his perfect universe, doing his perfect will and enjoying his perfect creation to his glory.
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"And he will swallow up (L)on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”" - Is. 25:7-9
"In the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul. ... O Lord, in distress they sought you; they poured out a whispered prayer when your discipline was upon them. Like a pregnant woman who writhes and cries out in her pangs when she is near to giving birth, so were we because of you, O Lord; we were pregnant, we writhed, but we have given birth to wind. We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen. Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead." - Is. 26:8, 16-19
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