There is a portion of eternal resurrection life assigned to each difficulty, each pain, each perplexity, each oppression, each weakness. This eternal life raises and strengthens the inner man of the saint. At the same time it creates before the Throne of God a spiritual body adapted to our strengthened inner man. The development of our inner nature is linked to the new body in Heaven—one complements the other.

Eternal, indestructible resurrection righteousness and life are having their rise in two places simultaneously: one, in the inner man of the saint on earth; two, in a body fashioned from resurrection life that will clothe the strengthened inner man of the saint at the coming of the Lord from Heaven.

Here is the righteousness and justice of God. We are reaping exactly what we are sowing on the earth. If we are sowing to our flesh, no house of life is being constructed for us in the Presence of the Father. If we are sowing to the Holy Spirit, a house of eternal life is being constructed for us in Heaven.

We shall be clothed with our own righteous works. If we allow God to bring us into the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ in the present world, then we will come to know the power of His resurrection in the ages to come. If we choose instead to walk in the lusts of our body and soul we will reap corruption. We will be a naked spirit in the Day of the Lord, perhaps saved, perhaps lost to the Presence and purposes of God for eternity.

What was Paul's desire?

To be clothed with his house from Heaven.

Paul expresses the same longing in his letter to the saints in Rome:

And not only they [the material creation], but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body (Romans 8:23).

What guarantee does the saint have who serves the Lord Jesus?

He shall not be found naked in the Day of the Lord (Revelation 19:8).

What does the saint on earth greatly desire?

That his flesh and blood, his mortal body, may be swallowed up by his body from Heaven—the body fashioned from incorruptible, indestructible, resurrection life.

What does Paul mean when he says, "not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon"?

Paul was not longing that he would be "unclothed," that is, lose his physical body. Rather, he was desiring earnestly that his flesh and blood body would be clothed with his body of eternal life from Heaven.

This is an important concept. When we are new converts our goal is to go to Heaven when we die so we may enjoy the beauty and wonder of the spirit paradise.

As we mature in the Lord we begin to understand that God's purposes are in the earth rather than in Heaven. God's Kingdom is coming to the earth. Our longing changes from desiring to rest in the spirit Paradise to that of being clothed with the indestructible power of resurrection life. We want to overcome every enemy of Christ in the earth and establish His righteous rule on the earth.

The earth and its peoples are the inheritance of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because they are Christ's inheritance they also are the inheritance of the overcomer.

To be continued.