Walk by Faith…

2 Corinthians 5:7

“For we walk by faith, not by sight.”

Although this verse appears in parentheses in the King James Bible, it is a most important concept in Scripture and is the summary of an extensive passage which precedes it. Beginning with

2 Corinthians 4:8…We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.

Paul continually contrasts the seen and the unseen, finishing up with the admonition to “walk by faith.”

2 Corinthians 4:9

We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.

Though we have trials on the outside, through faith we have inward triumph.

2 Corinthians 4:10-11…Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies.

2 Corinthians 4:12-14…So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you. But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, "I believed in God, so I spoke." (Ps 116:10) 14 We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you.

2 Corinthians 4:16-17

That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits(Greek our inner being )are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!

2 Corinthians 5:1

For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands

2 Corinthians 5:4

While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it's not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life

The death and decay of this life will ultimately be eradicated. We know this to be fact, for

2 Corinthians 5:5

God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.

as a guarantee of our resurrection, if indeed we have been born again by faith, the same faith by which we walk.

2 Corinthians 4:18

So we don't look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.