Dear Travelers,

Hebrews 6.10-12 says,

For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

We must listen to Jesus because when we hold fast to our confession, when we stand firm in our faith despite the heat of suffering, “God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.”

Ultimately God proves Himself to be just in that He will take note of our good works and reward us for them. God can be trusted to take account of what we do for His sake for the benefit of others. God can be trusted to remember what we have done in obedience to His Son. Our message to our Christian brothers and sisters in crisis is this: God can be trusted to reward you for your work done on behalf of others in His name. God will not forget what we do for Him. There is a sense in which God puts Himself under contractual obligation by virtue of establishing His covenant with us. By so doing, He establishes the terms by which He will bless “those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

But what of our unchurched friends who are in crisis? What is our message to them? It is the same message, but it is delivered in a series of questions:

• For whom are you working?
• For whose glory do you labor?
• For whose praise are you giving every ounce of time, talent and energy you have?

When the crisis comes, our unchurched friends must come to grips with an unyielding but liberating truth: “God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.” The context into which the message is spoken may be different but the message is the same. God rewards those who labor in trust/obedience for Him.

The promises in view here are all the promises God has made throughout the ages, including and especially the promise that all who receive Jesus Christ, all who confess their trust/obedience in Him “will not perish but have eternal life.”

We must listen to Jesus because He is the guarantor of a better covenant. He is the underwriter of the sure and certain promise that all who put their faith in Him will endure to the end and be saved. 

This is good news indeed both for the churched and the unchurched.

You think about that.