2 Corinthians 5.11 warns since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others.
The problem is we really don’t fear God. We live our lives silently knowing that we are not always doing what is right while believing God doesn’t really care because He doesn’t give us immediate feedback for our actions.
We deceive ourselves into believing that because God is love He overlooks all wrong.
God doesn’t give us immediate feedback to our disobedience because He has punished Jesus for them already and because of His kindness He is patiently waiting for us to stop doing those things and do what is pleasing to Him because we love Him.
God’s kindness is to cause us to regret our disobedience, turn away from it and move toward what is good and pleasing to God because He is so good and pleasing to us. God wants us to want to do good not fear the consequence of doing bad.
Second, God is allowing us time to build our eternal reward. Since He has forgiven the repentant from all their evil behavior He now allows us to accumulate reward for our obedience.
God desires to reward His people for their service to Him so invites us to store up treasure for ourselves in heaven. The judgment to come for the Christian is to reward those works that have eternal value.
This is why Paul states that we are to make it our business to warn people about the judgment to come. The judgment that leads to condemnation still applies to all those who live their days unrepentant to God. Again, they did not receive immediate feedback from God for their evil deeds because His kindness was waiting for their repentance.
All people who refuse to humble themselves before Jesus the Savior will face the judgment of the Savior leading to death and eternal separation from God in torment.
Conversely Christians should be reminding one another, warning each other, that God will judge us too, not a judgment of condemnation but one of reward.
Our encouragement to one another should be to do deeds in keeping with our repentance in order to glorify God on earth as He is in heaven so that we might hear Him say to us, ‘well done My good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Master.’
