Tents

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. – 2 Corinthians 5:1

Bedouin tents, still found in the Middle East, are made of the skins of animals, mostly sheep and goats. Those tents survive because those who dwell in them have learned how to repair them, something a man known to the world as the Apostle Paul fully understood. You see, he was a tentmaker by trade.

Writing to the Corinthians, Paul used the analogy of the old wind-and-weather-battered tent to the human body. He says, “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands” (2 Corinthians 5:1).

Your body is much like a tent – a good tent but one that can withstand only so many storms, so many repairs, so much wind and weather. Then, like the old house that Stewart Hamblin sang about, the tent, well – you know what happens – the tent collapses.

But Paul says a tent as well as your body is a temporary home, one that can be moved from place to place, but he says that you who belong to Jesus Christ have a permanent dwelling place, one that will endure forever.

It’s the one Jesus said He was going to prepare for them who love Him and trust Him. Paul wrote, “Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:6-8). That’s why you need to live so that, whenever the call comes, you will be ready to strike your tent here and relocate to the home Jesus went to prepare for you.

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Used with permission from Guidelines International Ministries. To learn more about Guidelines and the ministry, send an e-mail to [email protected]. You may also visit www.guidelines.org.