Grace in Focus is a great publication, but I have an issue with an article in the March & April 2016 edition. In it, Bob Wilkin published an article called “Shame at Christ’s Coming,” based upon 1 John 2:28: “Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.” Wilkin concludes from this verse that: “There will be some sadness at the Bema for any believers we poured our lives into who failed to persevere.” He goes on to say that our rewards at the Bema “will definitely be related to how well our disciples do,” and, “Fullness of rewards depends in part on what others have done with what we invested in them.” He says that we need to “think of it like investing” where a broker loses your money.
However, the Christian life is not some enterprise like Amway or a pyramid scheme. Each believer is his own priest (1 Peter 2:5, 9), and he is responsible for the stewardship of his personal spiritual gifts. Neither is God’s work some sort of volleyball game where each member of the team gets the same trophy. Individual effort is what matters, even when we sometimes work as a member of a team, and we will be judged as individuals–not as a group. We will be rewarded fairly, and God will work out the complex equations of what rewards we deserve.