In a world filled with trouble and all kinds of suffering, what a comfort it is to have Jesus as our refuge and heaven as our eternal resting place! Suffering is in us and all around us, but if we are trusting in Jesus as our Savior and Lord, we have a sure promise.

“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor. 5:1).

Pain always involves our bodies. It can be no other way. We feel even intellectual and emotional suffering in the body. This is because we are embodied spirits—we are each made of a body and soul . . . together . . . always.

Therefore, when we suffer pain or we are ministering to another Christian amid theirs, it’s helpful for us to remember that the bodies we currently inhabit are temporary. Someday, at the resurrection, we will get new ones—bodies immune to suffering of any kind. Until then, “we groan” under varied burdens, while “longing to put on our heavenly dwelling” (2 Cor. 5:2). Two simple truths from Scripture instill hope in the hurting heart.

We Will Receive a New Body Someday

The verse cited above encourages us to be confident in our knowledge that even “if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” Though the bodies we now occupy are built by God, we have another building from God that is infinitely better: an eternal home with him. Our current flesh and blood “cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable” (1 Cor. 15:50), but one day, all who know Jesus will be raised to receive new bodies that will live in everlasting glory with the Savior.

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