| E-MAIL SERVICE | Sign me up to receive the daily Word of Righteousness free via my E-mail address! ( ONLY AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH ) | |
| ARCHIVES | I want to check out the daily Words of Righteousness for any of the last fourteen days or from previous weeks. ( ENGLISH ONLY ) | |
| FEEDBACK | I have a question or comment about today's Word of Righteousness. ( ENGLISH AND SPANISH ONLY ) | |
| BOOK LIST | I would like to see the complete book list of the Words of Righteousness author Robert B. Thompson. (SOME SPANISH TITLES AVAILABLE ) |
The Daily Word of Righteousness
The Pursuit of Life, #5
Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life. (Revelation 2:10—NIV)
Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. (Revelation 22:12—NIV)
I do not think all believers will receive the same amount of eternal life at the coming of the Lord. It may be true that the degree of life we shall receive depends on our willingness to be pruned, to lay down our life. Christ will give to each according to his or her work, according to my understanding. An abundance of eternal life is a prize well worth striving for.
If we as a Christian have not cooperated with the Spirit of God in the transformation of our personality; if we have not denied ourselves, have not taken up our cross and followed Jesus Christ during our lifetime on the earth; have not presented our body a living sacrifice to God as our act of worship; then our flesh and bones will we clothed with a spotted garment that reveals the corruption in our inward nature.
In the day of resurrection our body will reveal what is in our inward nature.
Can you see what I mean when I say the knowledge of the two facets of the resurrection is vital to our understanding?
The Law of Cause and Effect
There are two sets of outcomes of our behavior. One set comprises outcomes of place. The other set comprises outcomes of state of being.
The two outcomes of place are Paradise, and torment. The two outcomes of state of being are the fullness of eternal life, and a diminished degree of eternal life all the way down to total corruption of personality, especially regarding the body.
In the New Testament, the people who will be sent to torment are the goat nations, Antichrist, the False Prophet, those whose names are not found in the Book of Life, and those who have personalities described in Revelation 21:8.
The people who will experience a diminished degree of eternal life, all the way down to total corruption of personality, are the believers who chose to not obey the commandments of Christ and His Apostles.
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:19—NIV)
I know modern Christian teaching sets aside such verses as Matthew 5:19 as not applying to Christians. This is a terrible error in thinking. It has made the teachings of Christ invalid. The modern philosophy of Dispensationalism and all of its tenets and assumptions should be discarded immediately, for it is destructive of God's plan of restoration.
Also, if Jesus is not speaking (in Matthew 5:19) of the Kingdom that we must be born again to enter, of what kingdom is He speaking? Are there two kingdoms? This is nothing but confusion. There is only the one Kingdom of God and it comes from Heaven. There is no other kingdom, and to teach that there is, is to adopt a misleading private interpretation, thus departing from the mainstream of the Scripture.
To be continued.