Context No. 3366 of 4322 · 2 Corinthians

2 Corinthians 5:6-10: in context

6Therefore we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; 7for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8We are courageous, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. 9Therefore also we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing to him. 10For we must all be revealed before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive the things in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

Paul gives one of Scripture's clearest statements of how the Christian lives now: we walk by faith, not by sight. In this life we are, in a sense, away from the Lord, not yet seeing him face to face, and so we live by trusting rather than by seeing. And this gives Paul a settled courage, even a longing to be at home with the Lord.

Whether here or there, at home in the body or away from it, his one aim is the same: to be well pleasing to him. And he holds before us a sober motive: we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, to receive what is due for what we have done. Living by faith is not living carelessly; it is living with the settled aim of pleasing the Lord we cannot yet see, knowing we will one day stand before him. Faith walks now toward a seeing that is surely coming, and it orders the whole of life around pleasing the One at the end of the road.

Am I truly walking by faith and not by sight, making it my aim to please the Lord I cannot yet see, mindful that I will one day stand before him?

Sources

2 Corinthians 5:7: "For we walk by faith, not by sight."
2 Corinthians 5:9: "Therefore also we make it our aim... to be well pleasing to him."
2 Corinthians 5:10: "For we must all be revealed before the judgment seat of Christ."