Certainty

May 2, 2020

“For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” —II Corinthians 5:1 NKJV

What we know is more important than what we feel. When we allow what we feel to govern our actions, we are unstable, carried about by the moment, vulnerable to those who know how to exploit our feelings.

People today are afraid. People are depressed. They are angry, can be lustful, greedy, or happy, none of which are a good basis for decision-making. Bad decisions come from acting on our feelings because feelings lie to us. In 2 Corinthians 5:1, Paul speaks of what we know: no matter what happens in this life, we have an eternal home with God which he says (in v.6) gives us confidence in this present life. The certainty of our destination and of the final outcome enables us to live confidently now. Paul doesn’t expect everything in this life to turn out well; after all, Jesus himself had revealed to him all he was to suffer for the Gospel. But Paul is confident because he knows the outcome. In 2 Timothy 1:12, he spells it out.

“For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.”

The troubles didn’t surprise or dismay him. So where does this kind of assurance, this knowledge come from? There was nothing in Paul’s circumstances to indicate things would end well, and “a home eternal in the heavens” is not empirically provable. The answer is found in v. 11—he was known by God.

If Jesus was able to find him on that Damascus Road years before, he must have known all about him. Being known by God is even more important than knowing God. The former is the foundation of the latter. 

Too often, we live as if, or hoping God doesn’t know, or perhaps as if he doesn’t exist. But once we’ve genuinely met him, everything changes. By “meeting him,” I don’t mean having some emotional experience. Remember, feelings do not make a good foundation. When like Paul, we genuinely meet God, it isn’t a warm, fuzzy affirmation, but a stark confrontation of the Cross; a contradiction of who we are and how we are living. This is why in vv. 10-11 he speaks of “the terror of the Lord.” Only when we’ve been confronted by a holy God ands topped dead in our tracks with the realization that he knows us—really knows us—that we can begin to comprehend the great love of Christ who sought us when we were hiding and bought us with his blood when we were rebelling. It is this love of Christ who knows us that is the foundation of both our knowledge and confidence in this life and the life to come. What a great Savior we have!