Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.

2 Peter 1:5-11

We are told by Peter how to be be sure we remain productive, or fruitful, in Christ.  Whereas one aspect of Sermon on the Mount could be loosely termed ‘how to keep from falling in ministry’ (Matthew 7:26-27), this passage could be likewise be termed ‘how to remain productive in the Kingdom’.  Peter goes on to say that by practicing these things, we will never stumble.  This is a great promise!  What great freedom is ours in Christ, to never again stumble after the flesh, but to be pleasing to Lord, body, soul, and Spirit, so long as we live.  What a great gift and availability before us, if we choose to walk after His Spirit.

Jesus said that the good soil produced a harvest, some thirty, some sixty, and some one hundred fold.  Faithfulness, the good heart, produces something, where the others, even if the plant grows, produces nothing.  In this way, the true heart after His produces fruit in keeping with His.  As faith without works is dead, so a heart living out of His heart must produce the fruits of repentance, of righteousness, and of the Kingdom. Read more…

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:5-11

Christ gave His life for us, and, although we can get to heaven, it is quite apparent from scripture that we can have greater or less reward when we get there.  We are saved by Grace, yet rewarded for what we do.  This is called the doctrine of Eternal Reward.

Psalm 1:5 says, “Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.”  We understand that the sinners will be judged, but so too will the believers, made righteous by the blood of Jesus Christ.

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