The phrase “the new you” has been used by health specialists, diet promoters, and plastic surgeons who promise a dramatic physical change that will transform a life. While such promises can have a positive effect, they are not new. Only our appearance changes by these adjustments to our lives, not the reality of who we are.

Paul wrote, “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” (II Corinthians 5:1).

This change is not a metaphor. It describes our future reality. “We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies” (vs. 2-3). Our future body will be something real, tangible, and touchable.

Knowing that we will be given a new body in eternity, as this one grows older and accumulates increasing pain and physical suffering, we groan in anticipation of that new body. “God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee, he has given us his Holy Spirit” (vs. 5).

“As long as we live in these bodies, we are not at home with the Lord. For we live by believing and not by seeing” (vs. 6-7).

Believing in the reality of a new body is evidence that our faith is alive. We cannot yet see what is coming but believe in its existence. “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see” (Hebrews 11:1). We cannot yet image the fullness of our new body, but we believe it is true. That belief raises the water level of our faith and releases new levels of hope.

“So, whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him” (vs. 9). Pleasing God should be the primary motivation for our lives, whether we are groaning in this dying body or someday when we stand in a great heavenly assembly and wait before the Lord to hear His judgment about how we lived our lives. At that moment, “We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body” (vs. 10).

Only a “new you,” the redeemed heavenly version of our lives, can stand in such a place and celebrate God’s faithfulness to do what seemed impossible while we were still clothed with the mortalities of this life.