DIVINE ACCOUNTABILITY

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please Him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

2 Corinthians 5:6-10

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Christians know and trust that they have been saved by the redeeming work of Jesus on Calvary’s cross and His subsequent resurrection, a salvation plan orchestrated by God the Father (John 3:16). Christ believers carry a confidence that this earthly life is not all there is for a heavenly existence waits that will last for eternity.

Now, no one has actually seen this for themselves. Nobody has gotten a temporary trip to heaven complete with a God-led tour of what’s to come. And yet Christians believe because they live by faith and not by sight, a truth affirmed by the Apostle Paul in our passage for today. They know they are away from the Lord as long as they are “at home in the body” because a person can’t co-exist in both places. Heaven is a place we look forward to, a place where we will be made new and freed from all the afflictions of this worldly life.

In yesterday’s message, we looked at what happens as we wait. We long for Heaven but understand we must wait. In the interim, Jesus has given us plenty to do and expects us to get to work continuing His Gospel ministry until that time when we leave this body behind to be “at home with the Lord”.

We do this with another understanding which fits under the “live by faith, not by sight” category. For as we find the Apostle Paul discussing in today’s passage, divine accountability is going to come just as sure as the gift of Heaven. All people, Jesus followers or otherwise, are going to “appear before the judgment seat of Christ” where we will “receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad”. And trust that there will be bad for everybody because we all have sinned and therefore fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). No one can get to Heaven without being saved by Jesus and that call will be made at the judgment seat.

This is absolute truth as we live by faith and not by sight. Divine accountability will happen.

And so we need to be prepared in advance. We need to “make it our goal” to live in a way that is pleasing to our Lord while at home in this body and we can do this best by living as He lived. Yes, we have justification through Jesus who makes us just as if we had never sinned but that doesn’t give us license to go ahead and live any way we want to. Paul writes on this in the opening verses of Romans, chapter 6:

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Romans 6:1-4

When we emerge from the waters of baptism, we are symbolically committing ourselves to a new life. We show that we are ready to become a new creation in Christ Jesus and through scriptures and lead of the Holy Spirit, we can become that new creation more and more every day. We are all works in progress when it comes to this and the good news is that the Lord isn’t finished with us yet. We have a fresh opportunity today to let the Lord make us better than we were yesterday and if you let Him, He’ll do just that. Keep stringing these days together like that, allowing Jesus to conform you to His image, and you can be assured that your life will be seen as pleasing to Jesus when you come before His throne of judgment on the coming day of divine accountability.

My prayer for you is that Jesus will be happy with your life and the way you lived it in Him when you come before Him face to face on the way to your heavenly dwelling.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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