So we are always confident, knowing that while we are home in the body we are absent from the Lord.  (7) For we walk by faith, not by sight.  We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.  (9) Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.  (10) For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. 

The second letter to the Corinthians was written by the apostle Paul. In chapter five Paul has been raising our mind and hearts to heaven through contempt for this world. He compares the miserable and incomplete condition of man in this life with the promised blessedness that awaits the believer after death. Our bodies are temporary – we can all see this as we age – and are unsuitable for heaven. The horror of death is overcome by the confidence in the gospel – flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God  and the indwelling Spirit gives us courage.

So the faithful are confident and dependent on the Holy Spirit.  God is present in us as the Spirit sealed us at the moment of faith but in this life we walk by faith and are absent from God in that we are not yet face to face with God.  As Paul says in Corinthians, we see as through a glass darkly.  One day we will be absent from the body and present with God  – the faithful can bear present affliction with hope of blessed life eternal.  Everyone will eventually give account of their lives and Paul is saying God accepts our works but the eternal life of the believer is earned by Christ Jesus and we obtain it gratuitously.

Even though all are naturally horrified to leave this world for things unseen, the words of c.s.lewis comfort the faithful.  From the Weight of Glory – “These things – the beauty; the memory of our own past – are good images of what we really desire;  but if they are mistaken for the thing  itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers  for they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard; news from a country we have not yet visited.”