HOW TO FACE JUDGEMENT WITH JOY

1Jo 2:28 And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.

Regardless of our eschatological positions, we all have to believe that (a) Jesus is coming and(b) we must give an accounting of our stewardship (Rom.14:12 ).

The fact that we must give account of ourselves to God seems to have thrown cold water on many a believer's longing for the return of Christ. The reason for this guilt induced coolness is that we know that we have not been obedient and faithful with the time, treasures, and talents with which we have been entrusted.

This is sad, brethren, because our Lord never intended it to be this way. He never intended that His people dread His coming. For this reason He has given us His Word, His Spirit, and His Church to guide us so that we might be able to greet His coming with confidence and not with shame.

The purpose of this post is to help God's people to so order their lives that they will be able to look forward to the review of their works (whenever and however that may take place [Insert your time table here.]) with joy. I'm not on an ego trip here. I really can tell you how you can not only endure the review of your life as a Christian, but how you can do it with joy.

# 1. Desire to honor Him more than you desire to be honored.
Make His glory your passion.
In every decision and in every deed, ask yourself: How can I most glorify my Heavenly Father
in this?

# 2. Desire to be holy more than you desire to be happy.
Sadly, we make most of our decisions based on what will make us happy. If we make
holiness our goal, we might not always be happy, but we will experience a Spirit wrought
joy and peace that passes understanding.

# 3. Desire to rob hell more than you desire to reach heaven.
This is a tough one. It will take some major restructuring of our priorities by the Holy
Spirit. This was the sacrificial spirit of Christ who left heaven to effectually redeem His
people. It was the sacrificial spirit that was reproduced in Paul who wrote:
9:1 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,
Rom 9:2 That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.
Rom 9:3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:
Of course, it's impossible for us to give up our salvation so that someone else can be saved.
However, if we had that kind of passion for the lost, we would be able to give up a meal or
two in order to pray for them.
We would be able to give up a little of our time in order to go give them the Good News.
We would be able to give up some of our money to missionary projects.

All said, this is simply Christ-likeness. It is the image of Christ reflected in a human life. I think God would be pleased with that.

Sure. There's probably more to it than that, but while we try to come up with more, let's start on these.