Copyright © 2019 Michael A. Brown
‘For no
one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus
Christ. If any man builds on this
foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will
be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire
will test the quality of each man’s work.
If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he
himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.’ (1 Cor. 3:11-15)
‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly...’ (Col.
3:16)
‘We have this treasure in jars of clay...’ (2 Cor.
4:7)
THE oversight of the church in Corinth
in the apostle Paul’s day would have been a real challenge for anyone called to
ministry. Although every young and
fledgling church always has its own set of problems and issues to work through,
yet this one in Corinth seemed to have more than most. To be sent to work amongst the more
honourable and faithful believers in Berea or Philadelphia would certainly have
been a much easier task (cf. Acts 17:11-12, Rev. 3:7-13). However, the apostle Paul persevered with
these believers in Corinth, assured that God really was at work amongst them,
but my word did they give him a hard time!
In
his first epistle to them, he takes them to task for the way they are building
on the foundation of their faith, Jesus Christ.
He rebukes them for continuing to live and think much as the
non-believers around them. They were
still spiritually immature and carnal, and were not growing in their faith in
the way he expected. As a consequence,
their church community was struggling with various issues and sins, such as
immorality, gluttony and marriage problems (amongst other things), as this
epistle shows very plainly and embarrassingly.
They were quarrelling and disunited, measuring the varying levels of
popularity of different apostolic preachers amongst themselves. Paul tells them plainly that their focus is
on the wrong thing. Should it really be
on the eloquence of Apollos or the wisdom of Paul, or should it be on the One who
works through these men and actually brings about the growth of the seeds of
truth planted amongst them by these men?
In
many ways, these Corinthian believers were still living and thinking according
to the wisdom, ways and standards of this world, rather than according to the
wisdom and ways of the kingdom of God.
Figuratively speaking, they were building their faith on ‘wood, hay and
straw (or stubble),’ rather than on the enduring ‘gold, silver and precious
stones’ of the word of God. And Paul
warns them that what they were building would not stand the test of God’s
judgement...
According
to the passage in 1 Corinthians 3:11-15, when we stand before Christ, our life
as Christians and in particular our work for him on this earth will pass before
him in its entirety, right down to the smallest detail (2 Cor. 5:10). His judgement and evaluation of us will be in
love, yet we will see our lives, our activities in ministry, our relationships
and the way we treated others, the words we spoke, and our motivations for what
we did, all under the penetrating light of his truth (Heb. 4:12). Everything
will pass through the fire of his judgement and will be exposed for what it
really was in his sight. Anything
that was built with ‘gold, silver and precious stones’ will endure and survive
the test. Everything else will be burned
up and consumed. Only what is left and
has survived the fire will be rewarded, because it is only this that was truly
of God. We do not need to fear this
judgement in a wrong sense, because Jesus bore God’s judgement on our sin, but
we certainly do need to live every day in the light of the fact that his
judgement of our lives as Christians and of our work for him is indeed coming.
So
if what we build is to endure the test of God’s fire, then we must learn to
build with ‘gold, silver and precious stones,’ rather than with ‘wood, hay and
straw.’ What we have built in our own
lives and in those of others with ‘wood, hay and straw’ will simply be burned
up and consumed. Paul even implies in
this passage that there will be some people who will prove to have built only
with the latter, and who will therefore suffer an entire loss (i.e. there will
be no actual eternal fruit from their work for God). They themselves will be saved (because they
trusted Jesus for their salvation), but on that Day they will be left with
‘nothing but the clothes they stand up in,’ as it were. What a shock that will prove to be, to have
gone through many years of ministry and yet to have built with the wrong
materials, and then to receive no reward and regret not having built properly
with ‘gold, silver and precious stones’!
This
contrast between ‘gold, silver and precious stones’ on the one hand, and ‘wood,
hay and straw’ on the other, highlights the fact that God’s value system is
completely different to ours. What we in
our fallenness often perceive humanly-speaking as ‘gold, silver or precious
stones,’ in his sight may be nothing more than ‘wood, hay or straw.’ God’s value system is based on eternal
spiritual truths, rather than on human, material and carnal perceptions which
are so common. Someone once called God’s
kingdom the ‘upside-down’ kingdom.
Actually we are the ones who are upside-down, of course, and the kingdom
of God turns us the right way up so that we can see things correctly from God’s
perspective.
What
appears to be wisdom to this world is actually foolishness to God (1 Cor.
2:18-31, 3:19). Believers who have been
‘the first’ in this life may well find themselves to be ‘the last’ in heaven,
and vice versa (Matt. 19:30). The person
who would seek to be great in the kingdom of God should be willing to become as
a servant to others (Matt. 23:11).
Similarly, Jesus said that one mark of true discipleship would be the
willingness to sell one’s possessions and give to the poor. Doing this would provide disciples with opportunities
as they followed the Master to gain a treasure in heaven that would never be
used up, stolen or destroyed. And so
on... Someone who has spent their lives
building their work for God with wood, hay and straw while believing that these
were actually gold, silver and precious stones, is going to get a real shock on
the day s/he stands before Christ!
Wood
speaks of that which is human: human ideas, human wisdom and reasoning, human
thinking, human motivations and human strength.
Although God does use people in his work of course, yet his work is to
be done through his strength and power.
Paul, Apollos and Peter were all men that God used, yet, although they
were gifted, it was God who made the seed of his word grow that they had
sown. They were merely instruments that
God took up and used, but who were anointed by the presence and power of the
Holy Spirit to do God’s work. The glory
for what God did through them belonged to him, not to them. It is God who makes things grow, not people
(1 Cor. 2:6-7). We should never fall
into the trap of thinking that men and women who are mightily used by God are
anything in and of themselves. They are
not. Our humanity cannot produce
anything of eternal value. Without
Christ we can do nothing (John 15:5). It
is his anointing upon us that produces fruit through us. We should never build on human celebrities,
names and personalities. We should build
on Christ alone.
The
Tabernacle in the time of Moses was built using wood, but this wood was
overlaid with gold. This is a picture of
what is natural being impregnated with the divine. The wood of our humanity is anointed,
impregnated and empowered by the gold of God’s divine presence and power as we
are filled with the Holy Spirit, and it is this gold of his presence that works
through us to produce lasting fruit.
Similarly
regarding hay and straw. The Bible
reminds us in several places that grass withers and flowers fall (e.g. Ps.
103:15-16, Isa. 40:6-8). They don’t
last. They are ‘here today and gone tomorrow,’
whereas the word of God endures forever:
‘“All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the
field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands
forever.” And this is the word that was
preached to you.’
(1 Peter 1:24-25)
The
latest fads, the latest promised ways of securing results, and the latest
cultural fashions and images may well have a novelty about them which is
attractive for some time, but as far as bringing forth eternal fruit in
believers’ lives, they are about as much use as hay or grass! They don’t last, they come and go, they don’t
produce real fruit, and very often it isn’t long before people move on from
them to the next ‘new thing.’ What does
produce fruit, and what will always produce fruit, are the principles of the
word of God taught and applied practically in our daily life.
Gold,
silver and precious stones speak of that which is created by God, whereas wood,
hay and grass can be manufactured, grown or produced by human methods using
that which already exists. Things built
in God’s work using wood, hay and grass are fruitless and will be exposed for
what they are in the judgement. They will be burned up, leaving nothing. Whereas things built with gold, silver and
precious stones will endure not only through time here on earth, but also
through the fire of God’s judgement in eternity. What survives the fire is that which has been
built into our life and which is truly of God; that which has been done that
was truly of him, and that which was built into the lives of others through us
which was truly of God. God himself
caused it to grow and brought forth the fruit.
Gold refined in
the fire
Our
faith tested and proven genuine
The believers in the church at Laodicea were living
in deception. The context of the local
commercial and banking system meant that they came under the influence of
material and financial prosperity, perhaps inevitably. So they had become rich and increased with
goods, and they thought they had need of nothing more. Everything was hunky-dory for them. However, in their hearts they had become
lukewarm and distanced from the living presence of Jesus.
So in
his mercy, Jesus exposed this deception and showed them that in his own sight,
they were spiritually poor, blind and naked.
Because of a lack of knowing God’s word and ways, and having these
deeply rooted into their lives, they were building their Christian lives with
the wood, hay and straw of human success and materialism, none of which lasts
or is eternal. He called them to
repentance and, amongst other things, counselled them to buy from him ‘gold
refined in the fire, so you can become rich’ (see Rev. 3:14-22). They were materially prosperous, but they
were spiritually poor. They thought they
were rich, but actually they weren’t.
They were clothed with the finest garments, but they were spiritually
naked. They thought they could see and
understand, but they were in fact blind.
By contrast, the suffering believers at Smyrna were materially poor, but
Jesus saw them as spiritually rich: ‘I know your afflictions and your
poverty – yet you are rich!’ (Rev. 2:9).
This
illustrates not only that the values of God’s kingdom are ‘upside-down’
compared to those of the world, as we saw above, but also the fact that what
God values (and what is therefore of eternal worth and will endure the fire of
his judgement) is having that which he himself sees as gold: he chooses the poor of this world who are
rich in faith (Jas. 2:5).
In God’s
sight, what is most important to him is the living, vital and dynamic faith of
our hearts. The Laodiceans’ hearts had
become lukewarm, and their faith was no longer really in Christ in a vital and
meaningful way, but rather in money and human prosperity. However, material prosperity is not
guaranteed to endure through life. It is
uncertain at best and there are many things of real and lasting worth that it
cannot buy. So it will not endure at the
judgement. We brought nothing with us
into this life, and we will certainly take nothing with us when we leave it!
So Jesus
exhorted these believers to get back to a place where their heart faith would
become warm once again: living, dynamic and applied to walking through life
with him. God was to be their Provider,
not the banking and financial system.
Living heart faith is gold in God’s sight and, because it walks in close
relationship with Jesus, is something that will endure through life regardless
of our circumstances, whether we are rich or poor, or we are rich but lose our
prosperity for whatever reason.
If we
are to endure as believers through all of life and overcome whatever it brings
our way, then we have to build ourselves on living, vital heart faith which we
learn to apply to the circumstances of daily life. God is always with us, and he will never
leave or forsake us. This is to build
solidly on the foundation of Christ. If
we do not do this, then it is inevitable that at some point our faith in Christ
will fail and we will no longer continue to walk with God. The apostle Peter emphasised this importance
of living, vital heart faith which will endure and grow stronger through the
circumstances of life:
‘In this [salvation] you greatly rejoice, though
now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of
trials. These have come so that your
faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire
– may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus
Christ is revealed.’ (1 Peter 1:6-7)
Furthermore,
these verses show us that where God sees real heart faith, he often tests it to
show us its value and power in life, to loose us from the grip that the ‘wood,
hay and straw’ of human life in general have over us, and to make it grow
stronger so that we are increasingly able to face and overcome the issues of
daily life with living faith in God. As
Job found, God has to test our faith, as only then is it proven to be genuine
and lasting, and only then can it grow stronger:
‘But he
knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.’ (Job
23:10)
It is
such overcoming faith that we all need to encourage in each other as we go
through life. Pastors and teachers of
the word of God in particular need to make sure they do this with believers
under their charge. It builds into our
life enduring gold which will never perish.
God is always with us to strengthen us, to help us, to provide for us,
and to see us through.
Silver
purified seven times
Knowing and
mastering the truth of the word of God in practice
As
believers discover the truth and power of the word of God in their experience,
it inevitably becomes precious to them.
Its promises and truths about God, which they have proven so often in
their experience (and through which God has spoken to them so many times),
become their greatest treasure. Many –
if not all – believers who have walked closely with God for any length of time
can relate to this. The writers of the
psalms in particular describe the word of God as being more precious to them
than silver or gold:
‘The
ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether precious. They are more precious than pure gold, than
much pure gold…’ (Ps. 19:10)
‘The law
from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and
gold.’ (Ps. 119:72)
‘Because
I love your commands more than gold, more than pure gold…’ (Ps.
119:127)
Furthermore,
in psalm 12:6 we discover just how the word of God becomes so precious to a
believer:
‘And the
words of the LORD are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay,
purified seven times.’ (Ps. 12:6)
In
building up our spiritual lives, God uses that which in his sight is gold,
silver and precious stones – the truths of his word – not the wood, hay and straw of carnal human life. Building our Christian life on a foundation
of sand is a grave mistake, as Jesus said, but so also is building with wood,
hay and straw on the right foundation (which is Christ). We have to build by teaching God’s
life-applied ways and leading people into them.
In perceiving
a truth from the word of God, or perhaps seeing God fulfil a promise, or
provide a need in answer to prayer, a young believer begins to experience the
power of God’s word and discovers that it is true in practice and experience. However, as s/he continues to apply different
truths and principles from God’s word to their daily life, and sees these
working time after time in many different situations over a period of years,
then s/he begins to build up a wealth of experience in seeing the truth of the
word of God being confirmed and fulfilled in practice. They become confident in its reliability and
use. The word of God has been refined
within them in the furnace of experience in daily life, with all of its
different pressures and heat. As a result,
they begin to master how biblical principles work in practice.
So God’s
word becomes precious to them and its truths become part and parcel of the
fabric of their life. It becomes
ingrained within them and imprinted deeply in their soul. Although in the beginning they perhaps
struggled with the practical application of God’s word, it slowly becomes
almost ‘second nature’ to them and much easier to put into practice. The believer who prayed falteringly in the beginning,
now prays much like a nightingale sings.
The person who hesitated and doubted, but eventually did take a deep
breath before stepping out to trust God in a situation, has now learned that
God really is with them, and they are no longer afraid to step out when they need to, confidently
expecting God to work and provide for them in fulfilment of his word.
Another
simple example of this is in the area of bitterness and forgiveness. When we are first challenged on the need to
forgive offence and to get rid of any bitterness we feel (Eph. 4:31), it is
normally a difficult struggle for us to do this, as it means having to overcome
the tendency of our old nature to want to hold on to our resentment, and to get
our own back, and so on. However, as we
learn in practice to release the offence to God and forgive the other person,
then we see that we become free deep within ourselves. Having gone through this process once, it
then becomes easier the next time around, until eventually after having gone
through it on several different occasions, we understand that forgiveness is a
choice we make and the sooner we make it and know God’s grace working within us
helping us to forgive, then the sooner we return to a place of freedom and
peace within.
So
forgiveness eventually becomes a habitual lifestyle choice for us in God’s
kingdom, rather than hanging on to unforgiveness and resentment, as unbelievers
so often do. We learn to treat others
with the same forgiveness with which God has treated us in Christ. It becomes easier to forgive than not to
forgive. In this way, the grace of
forgiveness is slowly ingrained within us, becoming part and parcel of the
fabric of our being. As a result of this
refining process of God’s word within us through repeated experience, verses in
the word of God that have to do with forgiveness, release from bitterness and
other related topics become deeply precious to us. Their truth has been built into us.
This
refining process is true of any promise or principle in God’s word. We prove them, become familiar with them and
master them through repeated experience of use.
The precious silver of God’s word is refined and purified within us
‘seven times,’ and the dross of doubt, unbelief and carnal responses is removed
from us through such repeated use. A
deep assurance and confidence is developed in our hearts that God can and will
provide for us, for example, because we have proven it many times. So it becomes easier to believe and stand on
God’s promises than not to believe them.
It becomes easier to live by the principles of God’s word than not to.
In this
way, these treasures of God’s word are built into us
deep within. They become an intrinsic
part of our lives, and so they are treasures that we will take with us when we
leave this life and stand before Christ.
Naked we came into this world, and naked we will leave it, so we will
only take with us from this life those things that have been built into our
lives through walking with God and cooperating with him to transform us, and
also what has been built into the lives of others through us. Any truth or principle from God’s word that
has been proven in our lives in the furnace of daily life experience, will
endure when it is tested by his fire. It
will stand both in this life and in the next. In mastering biblical principles through
repeated experience in this way, we have learned to build ourselves on the
solid foundation of Christ with the gold, silver and precious stones of his
word.
Built
and adorned with precious stones
Internalizing
the principles of the word of God in different areas of life
In a
similar way, as we learn to build ourselves on the foundation of the word of
God, putting into practice and mastering the word of God through experience, we
are building our lives with precious stones.
God told the Israelites that, after the afflictions of their exile in
Babylon, he would return them to the land and build the city of Jerusalem with
precious stones. This was, of course,
prophetic of the New Jerusalem:
‘I will build you with stones of turquoise, your foundations with
sapphires. I will make your battlements
of rubies, your gates of sparkling jewels, and all your walls of precious
stones.’
(Isa. 54:11-12, cf. Rev. 21:10-21)
It is
interesting that even Lucifer, before he fell through his pride and rebellion,
was adorned with precious stones:
‘You were in Eden, the garden of God; every
precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz and emerald, chrysolite, onyx and
jasper, sapphire, turquoise and beryl.
Your settings and mountings were made of gold...’ (Ezek.
28:13)
If Lucifer
was adorned with precious stones, then how much more does God want redeemed
believers, sons and daughters of God in Christ, to be built and adorned with
precious stones! Again, to be built with
precious stones means to be built on the practical, life-applied word of
God. In Isaiah 54:11-12, being built up
with precious stones is connected closely in the next verse with being ‘taught
by the Lord.’ So it is the life-applied
teaching of the word of God (being proven through practice and experience) that
builds into our lives the precious stones of God’s grace and truth. What believers need
to be taught is that which establishes the true and practical knowledge of God
in their lives:
‘All your sons will be taught by the LORD,
and great will be your children’s peace.’ (Isa. 54:13)
‘Therefore
everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a
wise man who built his house on the rock.
The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat
against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the
rock.’ (Matt. 7:24-25)
In
Isaiah 54:11-12, God says that he will build the city’s foundations,
battlements, gates and walls using different precious stones. The different parts of the city were each to
be built with precious stones. The
parallel to this in our lives as believers is that every part of our life is to
be built up using the different precious stones of God’s word. The word of God is full of many different
principles and truths which, taken together, apply to every area of our
lives. Each of these truths and
principles is a particular precious stone which God wants to build into our
lives, with the intention that we become adorned by the grace of this particular
truth or principle. Name any truth you
like from the word of God that applies to a believer’s life, in any area of
their life, and it is a particular precious stone. The word of God comprehensively covers every
area of our life, so, as we learn to practise its various truths, we become
adorned with many different precious stones and jewels. In order for the principles and truths of the
word of God to become rooted and grounded within us, we need to grapple with
their application in the ‘warp and woof’ of practical situations in life, much
as gems (such as rubies and sapphires) need time, pressure and high
temperatures to be formed.
In
general terms, the foundation is what we build our daily life on; the
battlements speak of prayer, faith and standing in spiritual battle; the gates
speak of the development of spiritual wisdom and character as we grow and
mature in our faith, and the walls speak of learning how to protect
ourselves. Each of these involves
different precious stones of spiritual truth. When we become established in any particular
biblical truth or principle in our life and have to some extent mastered it in
practice, then that truth has become embedded into the fabric of our life. It is then that we have been discipled on
that particular point. The all-round
development and growth of inward Christian character builds and ingrains the
many different truths and principles of the word of God into our being. We become real disciples of Jesus, adorned
with different precious stones and jewels of his grace and truth, because we
have internalized particular principles of his word through practice.
In the
previous section, for example, learning to practise forgiveness as a lifestyle
is to be being built and adorned with a particular precious stone of God’s
grace. Learning to live as a man or
woman of moral integrity is to be adorned with another particular precious
stone. Learning to exercise faith in
God’s promises and prove these in experience is again to be adorned with a
particular sparkling jewel. Becoming a
lifestyle worshipper adorns our life with another kind of gem, and so
on... In this vein, the writer of
Proverbs tells us that the spiritual wisdom of God’s word and the gaining of a
good name are more precious than gold, silver or rubies:
‘Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding,
for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than
gold. She is more precious than rubies…’
(Prov. 3:14-15)
‘[The
fruit of wisdom] is better than fine gold; what [it] yields surpasses choice silver.’ (Prov.
8:19)
‘How much better to get wisdom than gold, to choose understanding rather
than silver!’ (Prov. 16:16)
‘A good
name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver
or gold.’ (Prov. 22:1)
As
Christians the greatest precious stone with which our lives can be built and
adorned is that of love for one another.
It is love which binds together every other grace which works in our
lives. And therefore, as John says, we
will have confidence on the day of judgement, because, regardless of any wood,
hay and stubble which may still remain in our lives and will be burned up in
the fire, and regardless of in what ways we may have failed to fulfil
everything that we were called to do for God, yet our love for God and our Christian
love for one another, together with any other precious stones with which we
have become adorned, will be part of our very being as we meet Christ. These will endure the fire and will remain:
‘God is love.
Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us
so that we will have confidence on the day of judgement, because in this world
we are like him. There is no fear in
love…’ (1 John 4:16-17)
The
reason why we honour and look to the men and women of the Bible for inspiration
and example is because, regardless of any weaknesses or failings in their
lives, they were people who built their lives with the gold of living faith
which stood strong and overcame the challenges which came their way from time to
time; with the silver of the teachings and principles of the word of God which
through practice had become internalized within them; and they were adorned
with the precious stones of a developed, godly character. In God’s sight, they were worth their weight
in gold (Lam. 4:2)!
Proactively
building with gold, silver and precious stones
So we need to build our spiritual lives, and those of other
believers, using the gold, silver and precious stones of the living word of
God. It is these which build into us a
solid foundation for our/their faith and which build the truths of the word of
God into the fabric of our/their lives.
Building with the wood, hay and straw of human popularity, endless
activity, or the latest fads of spiritual entertainment, or by compromising
with the degenerating secular values of our age and culture, builds nothing
into us of eternal value, nothing that will last and survive the fire of God’s
judgement.
Jesus commanded us to make disciples,
believers who are learning to walk in the way of Christ, who are internalizing
the teachings of the word of God by putting them into practice (Matt.
28:19-20). We are to focus on building
bigger and better disciples, and not merely aim to build bigger congregations,
or to gain better positions in our church or denomination, for whatever
motive. More than any other thing, our
churches need believers older in the faith who are willing to truly care for
and disciple believers younger in faith, so that the word of God can take root
and be grounded in them.
Building
with gold, silver and precious stones is in some ways intuitive and perhaps
even obvious. There are many general
principles and truths in the word of God that all believers need to learn to
walk in and prove for themselves. For
example, all believers need to read and meditate on the word of God regularly;
they all need to learn to pray regularly; they all need to learn to walk in
integrity of character; they all need to walk in moral purity; they all need to
master the lesson of forgiveness; they all need to learn to walk through their
circumstances holding on to God’s hand, trusting him to provide for them in
answer to their prayers, rather than giving place to unbelief and complaining;
they all need to learn patience, and to persevere with God through challenging
and difficult experiences; they all need to learn to exercise faith for God to
work; they all need to learn to walk in grace and love in their relationships,
and so on…
If
we know this, then we can become proactive in using gold, silver and precious
stones to build people’s lives. A mature
believer or seasoned minister should know many of the particular truths that
younger believers need to learn and master in experience, because s/he should
already have proven these in his/her own life.
A wise father knows what developmental lessons his son needs to learn in
life, so he can be proactive in mentoring him as he begins to learn these. In the same way, with a shepherd’s heart we
can walk alongside younger believers, intentionally teaching and discipling
them, so that the gold, silver and precious stones of God’s word are slowly
embedded into the fabric of their lives and characters as they walk with Christ
in daily life. The hope then, of course,
is that as they continue to grow, they too will teach and disciple yet other
believers into the same practical truths of walking with Christ:
‘And the things you have heard me say in the
presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified
to teach others.’ (2 Tim. 2:2)
Learning
to build and disciple other people with gold, silver and precious stones really
is the greatest thing that we can do with our lives. Rather than living simply unto ourselves, we
can proactively engage in God’s kingdom by investing our time, energy and gifts
in things of eternal value, thereby helping to build God’s kingdom in people’s
lives. And God will one day delight to
reward us for every faithful act, deed and motive on our part:
‘For the Son of man is going to come in his
Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according
to what he has done.’ (Matt. 16:27)
‘For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in
which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy.’ (1 Thess. 2:19-20)
‘Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart,
as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an
inheritance from the Lord as a reward.
It is the Lord Christ you are serving.’ (Col. 3:23-24)
‘Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your
care… And when the Chief Shepherd
appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.’ (1 Peter 5:2,4)
‘Now there is in store for me the crown
of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that
day – and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.’
(2 Tim. 4:8)
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THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®,
NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission.
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