If I were to ask you, “What is your goal in life?” how would you respond? Perhaps your goal is to be happy, or to make your spouse happy, or to make your kids happy, or to make your employer happy. Maybe your goal is to achieve the American dream—a good job, decent car, nice home, good health, nice things to enjoy.

In vs. 9, Paul suggests what one of our goals ought to be—“to be well pleasing to [God].”

We should remember how this statement fits into the context. In the previous section, Paul has explained what to expect when we die. This temporary tent will be dismantled, and we will be clothed with “a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (vs. 1). Upon our death, when we are “absent from the body,” we’ll immediately be “present with the Lord.” We will be clothed upon with an eternal house in the heavens, a building “not made by hands.”

I hope that you are looking forward to that heavenly home, but most of us will not get there for a few years yet. We are living here on earth while we continue to pursue God’s will for our lives.

In vss. 6-10, Paul tells us how to live before we get to heaven. While we are waiting for our heavenly home—while we are “at home in the body—how are we supposed to live? Here’s the advice that Paul gives us.