Articles
"We Do Not Lose Heart"
“Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-5:1)
Life can often be a very perplexing thing. There is much about our lives on earth that we cherish—we relish the good times, love our friends and family and take satisfaction in our possessions and accomplishments. Then suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, adversity can clobber us over the head with such force that our troubles and challenges overwhelm us and we despair of life. The Holy Spirit, through the pen of the Apostle Paul, reminds us that, no matter how troubling our lives on earth may get, God’s children in Christ Jesus should not and “do not lose heart.” In comparison to the “weighty” crown of glory that awaits us on the other side of the grave, the problems we are left to temporarily deal with here on earth are but insignificant and “light afflictions”.
The key to keeping the faith and not losing heart through times of affliction and hardship is learning the skill of keeping our focus in the proper place and on the right things. If we only dwell on “the things which are seen” with our physical eyes, we will eventually grow weary and give up, because everything that the human eye can see is temporary (temporal). Cast your eyes upon the most extravagant mansion or the most miserable hovel, the youngest and most beautiful human frame or an ancient and wrinkled visage ravaged by time, and they all have one thing in common: sooner or later they will all waste away and be no more. If we keep our focus fixed upon the purely physical and external, our hopes will always be dashed upon the rocks of disappointment. But if we train our mind’s eye to stay centered on the “eternal” things that cannot otherwise be seen—the commandments and promises found in God’s living and eternal word, the example and sacrifice of our glorious Lord and Savior, and the expectation of an eternal home in heaven—hope will spring eternally within our hearts and minds and disaster and disappointment will not dominate our temporary or eternal lives.
The author compares our human body to a “tent,” which, by its very design, is a temporary structure. This reference calls to mind the children of Israel who were forced to wander about in the wilderness in and around the Sinai peninsula for 40 years because of their faithlessness in carrying out God’s command to conquer the wicked people of the Land of Promise (Numbers 14:32-35). In a very real way, our existence here on earth mirrors the lives of those wilderness wanderers. As excellent as our earthly lives can often be, our world is very much a desert of sorrow and sin that we are forced to wander upon as pilgrims and strangers. And the bodies that the Lord has blessed each of us with are only temporary shelters bestowed by our Master to momentarily shelter the immortal spirits He created in His own image. If we see the challenges of life as just too difficult to endure and are only spiritual grasshoppers in our own eyes, our bodies and souls will be laid waste in this dessert like the majority of God’s unfaithful children were nearly three and a half millennia ago (1 Corinthians 10:5). But if we are grateful for the time and opportunities God has granted to us to do His will here on this temporal plane, and face our trials head-on with faithful and brave hearts, “we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,” that Jesus has prepared and left waiting for us when our time comes to “fly away” (Psalm 90:10).
