Present with the Lord

2 Corinthians 5:8 “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”

I read an interesting devotional today on the above verse that I’d like to share today. This verse has proved of great comfort to many a sorrowing believer who has just lost a loved one. Especially if they know that the parent or child or friend was also a believer in the saving work and person of Christ, then—although they sorrow—they “sorrow not, even as others which have no hope” - 1 Thessalonians 4:13.

For that loved one, though no longer in that old body which had perhaps been filled with pain or disability, is now with the Lord. That is, he or she has been given a somewhat indescribable spiritual body and a wonderful life that awaits them in their glorified, resurrection bodies in the ages to come, they will be “with Christ; which is far better” than this present life.

The Apostle Paul was stoned to death in Acts 14:19-20 and speaks to it in 2 Corinthians 12:3-4. The Apostle John was taken up to view heaven  and returned to write about it in the book of Revelation. I’ve heard the analogy that all of time, from beginning to end, is like an arc. All points on the arc are equidistant (same distance) from the center point. The radius is the distance from the center to any point on the arc. God exists at the center point of the arc, outside of time, omnipresent,  omniscience and omnipotently interacting with all of time, which He created and sustains. Everyone, at death’s Judgment Day, we move from the arc to the center point to be present with the Lord. All of time coming to one point at the center point in heaven is an thought-provoking concept.

There are a number of sincere believers who argue that dead Christians will simply “sleep” until He comes again to raise the dead. While a certain case can be developed for this “soul sleep” concept, it is hard to see how that could be “far better” than this present life. Paul said that he had a “desire to depart, and to be with Christ” and also that “to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”. But what “gain” could there be for them in simply “sleeping” instead of continuing to live in Christ?

The Scriptures do not reveal much about that “intermediate state,” as it has been called. But there is that intriguing verse about being “compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses” who perhaps are somehow watching us as we “run with patience the race that is set before us” here on Earth. That possibility can be a real incentive to do just that. One thing is for sure; we’ll know when we get there. Thanks be to God!

Blessings in Christ