Fear, Part 2

Final Words of Ecclesiastes:

“Ecc 12:13 This is the end of the matter; all hath been heard: fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.
Ecc 12:14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.

What will we be held accountable for in Heaven? Some today say “nothing” but this thinking is not found in the bible. I think our first response would be our adherence to His teaching in the Bible. But I must say the largest percentage of the men I know live “somewhat” of a form of a moral life .Their view of God as a nice, sugar daddy, understanding figure is in question. They basically have accepted Christ but live on the fringe of the Christian Word. They somewhat buy in to this proposition of accountability with God.

In obeying the Word, a tricky part of adhering to the Word is your handling of the positive commands of God. A few of these for this document I will note are

Honor your parents as commanded by God.
Love your wife as Christ loved the church
Give as you have decided. No reluctance and no sense of compulsion
Honor your authorities , the Apostle Peter specifically calls the people of Christ not only to show submission to the emperor “as supreme” but also to “governors” (1 Pet. 2:13-14). The Apostle Paul calls on the churches to pray and to show thanksgiving for “kings” (plural) and for “all who are in high positions” (1 Tim. 2:1-2).

Question: What does it look like to obey these commands?

Notice 2 things about the positive commands

There are no metrics to these commands. Only God can keep score.
We get to define how these commands are to be applied in our environment/culture.

Good news: you get to decide what the application of these commands looks like.

Bad news: you get to explain your application to God.

But what I have observed as the greatest short fall in today’s man is his lack of vision or development of his Giftedness for his place and work in the kingdom of God on earth. God has given us our giftedness to live a life for God in our times. Our giftedness may help us in business and society and school but God gave us the gifts to us mainly to be used in the kingdom of God.

Notice in Matthew that the parables on rewards are about investing your “talents” not just cleaning up your act. We tend to see Christianity mostly as straightening our self up. But a large part is about our work in the kingdom-with people. Personally, my fear of God at my review at the Bema Seat, is about telling God I buried my gifts in the ground or used them in my career and personal recognition and not the Kingdom. . Remember the end of the parable

Mat 25:24 And he also that had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou didst not sow, and gathering where thou didst not scatter:
Mat 25:25 and I was afraid, and went away and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, thou hast thine own.
Mat 25:26 But his lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I did not scatter;
Mat 25:27 thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the bankers, and at my coming I should have received back mine own with interest.
Mat 25:28 Take ye away therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him that hath the ten talents.
Mat 25:29 For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away.
Mat 25:30 And cast ye out the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness: there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth. RV

Rough conclusion. Let it not be us…

On reflection, I realized I was going to have to pray and think and have accountability to get through this maturing process and becoming conformed to the likeness of Jesus and working in the Kingdom. These are tricky waters.

Questions: