Let us live by faith and not by sight.

If we live by sight (2 Cor. 5:7), then we will loose heart (4:16).

The reason is because our outer man is decaying (v. 16; Cf. 5:1, 4).

If we look at the things which are seen (4:18)

Then we will groan and are burdened (5:2, 4) due to our light and momentary affliction (4:17).

That’s why we must live by faith (5:7).

Although we are wasting away outwardly, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day (4:16).

Also, our light and momentary affliction will produce for us

an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison (v. 17).

When the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God,

a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens (5:1).

So “while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen”

Because “the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (4:18).

And we long to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven (5:2).

When we are clothed with our dwelling from heaven, our mortal will be swallowed up by life (v. 4).

God who prepared us for this very purpose gave us the Spirit as a pledge (v. 5).

Therefore we are always live with good courage (v. 6).

So “we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body

and to be at home with the Lord.

Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him” (vv. 8-9).

Let us live by faith and not by sight (v. 7).