So we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we walk by faith and not by sight, and we are confident and satisfied to be out of the body and at home with the Lord. Therefore, whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the tribunal of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body whether good or worthless.  2 Corinthians 6-10 HCSB

How often do you stop before saying or doing something and ask yourself if what you are about to say or do will be pleasing to the Lord? How often do you inconvenience yourself to do something that the Lord is calling you to do?

In our scripture passage today, Paul is talking about our goal of reaching our eternal home in heaven. In verses 1 and 2 Paul speaks of our earthly bodies. We groan in our earthly bodies longing to be in heaven. While we are on earth we cannot see the Lord. We walk by faith and not by sight. But there will be a time when we will be judged at the Bema seat of judgment for our works here on earth whether good or bad.

If you looked at your life today and were honest with yourself, would you say that the Lord is pleased with the work you are doing here on earth? Are you fully committed to Him or is it some half-hearted, hoping to get to heaven kind of commitment? Do you love Him with your whole heart or does he have to share your heart with your love of money or hobbies or whatever else takes up space there? Have you humbled yourself before Him making Him the most important thing in your life? Do you consider others to be more important than yourself or are you only concerned with looking out for number one?

Now I get it. Aiming to please someone that we can’t see may seem strange if you are a non-believer, but if you are a believer you know that we see Him in many things. We see him in creation. How can you look at a gorgeous blue sky or a beautiful sunset or a starry moonlit night and not see Him? We see him in many ways.

Many of us live as though we will never have to answer for the things that we say or do, but I assure you there will come a time when we will all give account for every careless word spoken (Matthew 12:36). In Romans 14:11-12 Paul says that we will all stand before the tribunal of God and will give an account of himself to God.

Once again, I ask how do you think you are measuring up so far? Do you think if you were called before the Lord today that He would say well done my good and faithful servant (Matthew 25:21)? Or would he say, depart from me I never knew you, you worker of iniquity (Matthew 7:23)?

Now I don’t want you to read this thinking that good works can get us into heaven, they can’t. I want you to fully understand that it’s our heart that God judges. In James 2:14, he asks if someone says he has faith, but has no works can that faith save him? The point he is getting at is this. Faith without works is dead because true faith produces works. If you believe in the Lord and love Him with all your heart, you want to please Him. You do good works because you want to live your life in a way that pleases the Lord. In 2:24, he says that a man is justified by works and not faith alone. In verse 36, he says that faith without works is dead.

I’ll close by breaking it down like this. We are saved by faith in Jesus alone. Jesus plus nothing equals salvation. But when we are truly saved, we love the Lord with all our heart. If you love someone with all your heart, you want to do good things for them. You want to go out of your way to please them. If we truly love Him with all our heart, we want to please Him. We want to go into His house and praise and worship Him. We want to treat others the way He would have us treat them. We want to obey His commands and we trust in Him wholeheartedly.

So, I ask you today are you trying to do your best to please Him? If the answer is no, then maybe we need to ask the bigger question, do you truly love Him? These are questions that we need to ask ourselves. We need to be honest with ourselves because we can’t wait. We can’t put this off. In just a little while may be too late. Please give this some serious thought.

Have a great day!