I read an article about the rapture and the author mentioned the Bema Seat. He wrote:
“Those who have lived carnal lives and are not walking in the will of God will lose rewards at the bema, or judgment seat of Christ. The believer must do his or her best to live the way God expects of His children while still in this mortal flesh. The child of God should take this truth very seriously. How he or she attempts to walk righteously here on earth will determine his or her eternal service status when they look into their Lord’s omniscient eyes.”
What is disturbing me is this “determined eternal service status”. Is there any hint in the Bible for the validation of this statement? I’m not happy that I will probably lose rewards but I sure don’t want to be “doomed” to an eternal kind of state or status, whatever it is, that is unchangeable. It would be depressing that despite I’m in heaven, there won’t be a chance or a single ray of hope to change our state or status if this kind of things really exist. What is your opinion on this?
The phrase “eternal service status” is man made and doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bible. Neither is there any guidance given that connects our behavior here with our relative status in eternity, except for the crowns we’ll be given.
But there’s no way we’ll spend eternity regretting things we did or didn’t do here. That would conflict with everything we’ve been taught about our joy in the presence of the Lord. This sounds like one more attempt by the “faith plus works” folks to scare others into behaving the way they think we should. The human part of me hopes they will be judged by the same standards they try to impose on the rest of us.