Matthew 25 Rapture Blog

Here’s a quote from The Book:  The Believer’s Payday – Why Standing Before Christ Should Be Our Greatest Moment

http://www.schoettlepublishing.com/bookpreviews/benware/preview.htm

The believer’s reigning as king with the King of kings is conditioned upon faithfully enduring for Him in this life. Something of the meaning and significance of this will be explored later.Art used by permission by Pat Marvenko Smith, copyright 1992.
 To order prints visit her “Revelation Illustrated” site.
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What if a believer chooses not to “endure” but, like many believers at Corinth prefers to blend in with the world system and not be clearly identified with Christ? …….denial of Christ will bring denial from Christ. ……. Our “denial” is the opposite of our “enduring,” ……. In other words, Christ’s “denial” is not the banishment of a person to hell but rather the denial of reigning with Him in His kingdom. Those who deny Him here and now will be denied the right to rule later on in His kingdom. Paul has already exhorted believers to endure….

Denial does not refer to momentary lapses and failures that are realities in the lives of all believers. Every believer has “denied” the Lord Jesus many times and in many ways. Peter’s denial of Christ is well documented in the gospel record…….. “Denial,” rather, is looking at a settled , characteristic way of living life. Most believers will not deny Christ as blatanly as Peter did, but that is not the only form denial takes. When we do not live obediently according to the dicates of Scripture, we are in essence not identifying with Christ, but are in fact denying Him…….

…….. He will fulfill His word and bring believers into His kingdom in spite of their unfaithfulness. He will remain faithful to His own words and nature, which means the believer’s unfaithfulness will not be rewarded by Him. There will be differences in His dealings with those who belong to Him.

These truths were well known and well accepted in Paul’s day even if they may not be so in our own day. These verses teach the conditional nature of reigning as kings with the King of kings. The privilege of ruling is conditioned on faithfully enduring for Christ in this life. The old song of the church is certainly correct when it says “it will be worth it all when we see Jesus.”

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Benware, Paul. The Believer’s Payday. Chattanooga, Tennessee: AMG Publishers, 2002 , pp. 32-33.

http://www.schoettlepublishing.com/bookpreviews/benware/preview.htm