Hey Bible Readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

It's day five of our International Challenge Week, so here's today's reminder to send at least

two of your friends who live abroad to the start page of our website, the Bible Recap.com. And listen, you're welcome to invite more people

than that. I'm not here to stunt your invitations.

Feel free to cast a wide net. Now on to the podcast.

Yesterday Paul compared our bodies to jars of clay and today he continues his third

letter to the Corinthians by comparing them to tents which are not very sturdy.

What they need is for someone to build an eternal mansion around

them, our resurrection bodies, because right now our tent bodies still suffer from the elements

and from attackers. God says that will happen someday. In fact, inside these tents lives the mansion maker, the spirit, and he is preparing us for the mansion.

Remember how Jesus said he is going to prepare a place for us. God also says he's working to prepare us for it.

God is the one who does all the prep work and part of that preparation is giving us his spirit,

his guarantee. In the midst of all Paul's trials, it's not death he's wishing for, it's

eternal life. He says he'll either be alive here or be alive with Christ. Because for anyone with the

spirit, death is this thing we kind of step through or pass over.

It's not really clear in scripture.

But here's one thing Paul says is true of those who died before Christ return, which might also apply to us someday. In 5.4, he says they live in this

unclothed state, where their spirits are disembodied and they're with God, but they haven't yet been given

their resurrection bodies, which is what will happen

when Christ returns to Earth someday. They are away from the body and at home with the

Lord, like Paul says in 5-8. That's where he is right now. His body is no longer a tent, but he won't have his mansion body until after Christ returns to Earth.

In the meantime, his spirit is with God in heaven.

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