“Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight). We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:6-8).
We are always confident, knowing…I like that! Not hoping. Not guessing. Not maybe so. But knowing! Knowing that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. Yes, God’s Spirit is in our hearts, crying, Abba, Father, but Jesus Christ, with a physical, flesh-and-bone resurrected body is at the right hand of the Father in Heaven. And when we are absent from the body, we will be present with Him there.
Who is “we”?
At the time of his physical death, man leaves his body. When he does, he is no less man than when he had his body. I don’t have space here to recount my entire testimony concerning my experience of dying (for the complete account, please see my minibook entitled, “I Went to Hell”).
But I do want to say this: When I was outside my body, I was no less man than I was when I was inside my body. To me, I was just as real as I am now. I had the same shape. I had the same form. I had the same size. And I knew everything I knew before I left my body.
Confession: The real me lives inside my body. The real me is an eternal spirit being that will never die!
(Taken by permission from RHEMA Bible Church , aka Kenneth Hagin Ministries , Tulsa , OK , USA. www.rhema.org )
