January 29, 2025

Two kinds of judgment

 

On a quiz show this week, one contestant was a very nice person, but he flunked most of the questions. Rating for personality = high. Rating for performance = not so hot.

Do most Christians realize that God has a rating system? One is about salvation. I have a photo of Jesus hugging a person. The caption says “Jesus does not come to us with a score card but with the gospel.” The judgment that we do not face is called the “White Throne” judgment. It is about repentance and salvation, about believing the gospel and giving my life to Christ.

. . . . The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. . . .(2 Peter 3:8–15)
Because salvation is a done-deal through the gift of faith and believing the gospel, I can say:
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set me free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in me. . . . (Romans 8:1–8, personalized)
However, there is a judgment coming for what I have done in my Christian life. The Greek word is Bema. It does not judge who I am, but what I’ve done and determines gain or loss of heavenly rewards:
According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. (1 Corinthians 3:10–15)
Because I trust Christ Jesus, I do not fear this judgment. He saved me to do the works He prepared for me to do (Ephesians 2:10) and those rewards will be mine, not because I fret about what I should do, but because He set me up for what He wanted done before He saved me.

PRAY: No pressure. My score was marked before I was born. Jesus, You take care of all things, including what I do in the power of Your Spirit and the rewards You will give me for doing what You enable me to do. There is no boasting because You have thought of everything and done it all. My life is totally in Your hands.


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