Fear of the Lord
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Living with an Eternity Mindset
Living with an Eternity Mindset
Here’s one truth I don’t believe many Christians put into an equation-Everything you do or do not do impacts you forever. Receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior gets you into heaven and if I am honest I would rather be a Janitor in Heaven than a Corporal in Satan’s Military. However, what you do or do not do here on Earth has a Heavenly impact. I want to discuss for a moment having an Eternity Mindset. Understand people have written entire books on this subject so I am going to give you a snap shot.
10 For we must all appear and be revealed as we are before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive [his pay] according to what he has done in the body, whether good or evil [considering what his purpose and motive have been, and what he has achieved, been busy with, and given himself and his attention to accomplishing].
The word Evil here is the greek word Kakos which we have defined as pertaining to being bad or something doing something harmful, but this word also has an alternate meaning: to recede, retire, or retreat. Simply meaning refusing to do what you are called to do.
A damaging effect that is caused by retreating simply not doing what we are called to do.
As stated before if you are saved you will be in Heaven and for some that is enough. For me it’s not. I desire so much. I don’t desire rewards for rewards sake—although rewards are God’s idea, he created them as a motivator, but the biggest motivation is our rewards in Heaven will show God’s approval of what we did on Earth. And we should seek his approval above all else. I want to give you a few verses that shows God rewards us for doing good.
3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
41 The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.
21 Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
6 He will render to each one according to his works:
God desires to reward you not only here on Earth but in Heaven as well.
The reality is Jesus himself repeatedly promised rewards to the faithful as motivation. Some of Christianity has this concept completely backwards. We tell people to run from Hell and judgement, but what if we are meant to run towards
Even Jesus was reward Focused
2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Jesus faced the horror of the Cross for the joy set before him. His joy was your freedom and relationship.Christ was able to endure the pain of the cross because the reward was worth it.
Run towards: God’s approval and God’s rewards
How would that change our faithfulness?
But some put out this idea: Well isn’t it self serving or narcissistic to work for rewards. I saw no-Here’s the reason.
I love my wife, I want to be close to my wife. I want to spend time with my wife. To do that I have to treat my wife well. I can’t expect my wife to desire me if I treat her badly. So I treat my wife well because I desire a relationship with her. Is that narcissistic no! ask Most females and they will say that’s romantic. It’s how God built us. Now if I twist it. Let’s say I just want sex. I don’t desire a relationship I just want sex. I know if I clean the toilet my wife will give me sex. So every time, and the only time, I clean the toilet is to get sex. Now I am narcissistic and self seeking.
Motives matter.
5 So do not make any hasty or premature judgments before the time when the Lord comes [again], for He will both bring to light the secret things that are [now hidden] in darkness and disclose and expose the [secret] aims (motives and purposes) of hearts. Then every man will receive his [due] commendation from God.
You see God knows the motives of our hearts. He knows what truly drives us. That’s why he wants to give us fuel to be driven. Our darkest secrets and our provate motives will be laid bare before the entire assembly of Heaven on Judgement day.
24 The sins of some men are conspicuous (openly evident to all eyes), going before them to the judgment [seat] and proclaiming their sentence in advance; but the sins of others appear later [following the offender to the bar of judgment and coming into view there].
This week I read an article about Arthur Barry. You may not know that name but he committed more than 150 robberies in his time. Arthur Barry made a craft out of robbing the richest people alive. In the interview Arther concluded by stating this:
I’m not very good at drawing morals, when I was a young lad I had intelligence, charm, the ability to get along with people, and guts. Could have made something out of my life, but I didn’t. So whe you write the story of my life and tell about all the robberies, don’t leave out the really big one. You can tell them Arthur Barry robbed Jessie Livermore, the Wall Street baron. You can tell them that he robbed the cousin of the King of England. But don’t forget to tell them that most of all, Arthur Barry robbed Arthur Barry.
It wasn’t until it was too late that Arthur noticed that he squandered the gifts God had given him. We can be the same way. When we fail to Fear God properly. When we fail to sacrifcially, consistantly, and joyfully serve the Lord we’re not only robbing God from blessing us but we are robbing ourselves the joy and peace that comes from please God—our creator.
Over the next coming weeks I want to dive into this idea. I left the title as the Fear of the Lord because that needs to be our driving motivation of everything we do.