Revelation 14.13 promises they shall rest from all their toils and trials; for their good deeds follow them to heaven!
God measures our performance.
The expectation of God is that we work to bring Him glory upon the earth as He is glorified in heaven.
This means both being good and doing good not as we, but as He, defines good. This being and doing of good is not easy for both we and the world are broken, diseased with the plague of rebellion against the goodness of God.
The world yields thorns and thistles where we planted good seed. We try and be good yet our thoughts and words continue to reveal an impatience with and a dislike for our fellow human being who has also been created in the image of God. These realities are not to be excuses for not being good or doing good but rather are to drive us toward our Creator for strength and mercy.
God, while living among us as Jesus, declared in this world we would have trouble but promised that He had overcome the world.
No trouble or trial we face today is greater than His presence in us including death for those who love Him shall rise with Him having completed this part of the journey as He completed His. For the Christian these times, no matter how good and certainly no matter how bad, are the worst of times, the best is yet to come.
The Christian awaits their entrance into the Kingdom of God where there is no more suffering, no more weeping and no more death. Until then we are to labor against our own flesh and the world’s brokenness to see as many people as possible join God in His kingdom.
The good deeds for which we will be rewarded and by which we shall be measured will be concentrated upon the work of winning people to God’s point of view.
It was the work of God in Jesus that made reconciliation with God possible.
It is the work of God’s people to share that message and to live that message so that the people in our lives become reconciled to God even as we have been reconciled to Him.
This is not an easy work but it is the work for which God rewards all those who do so tirelessly.
