The Lord’s Coming is an Incentive and Warning: He Comes with Reward and Punishment

The Lord Jesus is coming quickly with reward and punishment, and we need to take His imminent coming both as an incentive and as a warning so that we cooperate with Him to live one with the Lord, express Christ, work for the Lord, and serve Him according to the will of the Father.

Lord Jesus, we give ourselves to You today. We give You our service and our work for You. May we be faithful and prudent in service. May we live one spirit with You. Oh Lord, we take Your imminent coming as an incentive, for we love You and we are looking forward to Your return to be with You! We take Your imminent return as a warning, being sober in all things and serving God faithfully according to the vision of the age! Amen!

We believers in Christ have received God’s mercy and grace to repent and believe into the Lord, and we are the most blessed people: we are the people of God.

This is not of ourselves; it is not because we were better than others or we’re more seeking than them, but because of God’s mercy. He reached us in His mercy, and we have repented, having a turn toward the Lord.

Now as believers in Christ, we should not be passive but rather, we should realise that our living and work for the Lord matters very much.

God didn’t just save us and now we need to wait for the Lord to come and bring us to heaven; rather, we need to live in a certain way and do a particular work according to the New Testament revelation.

The Lord will return, and when He comes, He will give us a reward according to what we have done in our Christian life.

This doesn’t mean that we should strive to be good, do good, perform great works for God, and always choose the good and not the bad.

Rather, we need to learn to live one spirit with the Lord and take the Lord’s coming as an incentive and as a warning.

On the positive side, we need to be incentivised as we consider that the Lord is coming soon, for we love Him and we love His appearing.

On the negative side, we need to let the Lord’s coming be a warning to us, keeping us away from doing evil, habitually living in sin, and being lazy in our serving the Lord.

Christ is coming with reward and punishment, and even though we love the Lord and we read the Bible, we need to do certain works in order to be pleasing to Him and receive His reward.

May we take this before the Lord and may we live our Christian life in such a way that we will receive a reward at the Lord’s return! Amen!

The Way we Serve and Work for the Lord after we’re Saved Determines if we Receive a Reward or Punishment at His Coming

We need to see that the way we serve and work for the Lord after we are saved is a great matter, for this determines whether we receive a reward or punishment at His coming.

We all have believed into the Lord Jesus and we even consecrated ourselves to Him; we prayed to give Him the full ground in our being so that He may have a way in us and do what He desires in our being.

We even prayed that He would make His way clear to us and cause His way to become our way. And today the Lord is doing it. He is carrying out His will in us.

We open to Him, we pray, and He does it in us. On our side, however, we need to serve and work for the Lord in a proper way.

We should not do things in our natural man, according to our natural ability, or in the flesh; rather, we need to give up our struggling and striving and let the Lord shepherd us and train us to serve and work for the Lord.

When we allow Him to do what He wants to do in us, He will make us the same as He is. He will not only forgive our sins but even more, even as He is light, we are made light, and even as He is love, we are made love.

We are being made God in life and nature but not in the Godhead to be His corporate expression! Hallelujah!

We need to take the Lord’s coming as a warning and an incentive to us; Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:14 that, if anyone’s work which he has built upon the foundation remains, he will receive a reward.

But if our work is burned, if the fire of God’s judgment consumes our work, we will be saved, yet so as through fire, for there will be a punishment (v. 15). Oh Lord!

After we’re saved, we still have issues to take care of; our conduct is an issue, and our work for the Lord is also an issue.

What we do, what we say, and what we work needs to be on the foundation, which has already been laid, and we need to beware of our work, not to be of wood, grass, and stubble.

When the Lord comes back, there will be a judgment; in that judgment, He will determine whether we will receive a reward or punishment.

This reward will be decided by the judgment seat of Christ, for we will all be manifested before this judgment seat so that each one of us may receive the things done through the body according to what he has practiced, whether good or bad (2 Cor. 5:10).

We need to clear up all the negative things in our being, and we need to be open to the Lord to be trained and developed in serving and working in a God-arranged way.

The Lord wants to have access to the depth of our being to work Himself into us and build us into Himself. He also wants us to serve in coordination with the saints for the building up of the Body.

We all have our own disposition – God created us with a particular disposition.  However, sin and death has made our disposition fallen, twisted, and off.

So we need to depend on the Lord, open to Him, and serve and work for the Lord in spirit, fully one with Him, so that we may receive a reward at the time of His coming.

The unbelievers will be judged at the great white throne a thousand years later (Rev. 20:11-15), but the Lord will judge all His believers at the judgment seat (2 Cor. 5:10) before the age of the kingdom.

It is there that the decision will be made by God concerning what reward they will receive – the enjoyment in the coming kingdom or some punishment.

May we open to the Lord concerning this and give Him our best cooperation today, in this age, while we are alive, in our situation!

Lord Jesus, we love You and we open to You. You are our beloved. We love You and we want to serve You. We want to work for You and in You, even work by being one with You! Amen, Lord, make us the faithful and prudent slaves who serve in Your house today so that, at Your coming, we may receive a reward from You. May we not be lazy or evil in our heart in serving You. Oh Lord, we take Your imminent return as a warning and also as an incentive. May we live and work in the light of Your return. May we realise that You are coming soon, and Your reward is with You. Oh Lord, how about our work? How about our way of working for You and serving You? We want to work for You and serve You in such a way that we will receive a reward. May we be in Your word, in the ministry, and in our spirit as we do all things so that we may serve in spirit according to Your desire. May we do the perfect will of God and build with gold, silver, and precious stones today!

Take the Lord’s Coming as an Incentive and Warning, for He comes with Reward and Punishment

The Bible tells us that the overcomers will reign for a thousand years, and at the same time, we are told that there are some believers who will suffer loss, be punished, and not be rewarded.

We are not told how long the punishment will last, but we can infer that the receiving of punishment will definitely take place during the next age, the age of the millennium.

What the Lord wants to do, in principle, is to both motivate us and to warn us so that we cooperate with Him in this age.

He wants us to motivate us to cooperate with Him, love Him, work for Him, and serve Him, and He is also warning us of the loss we will suffer for not cooperating with Him.

There is a possibility for each believer that, when the Lord returns, he will be punished; this should keep us all on the alert, being a warning to us.

We should see that, if we don’t pay the price to pursue the Lord today, serve Him faithfully in working for Him, and be one with Him in our daily living, we will eventually suffer loss.

It will be so severe that we will feel as if we are passing through fire (1 Cor. 3:15). If we today commit sins habitually and remain in the enjoyment of sin, we will be salted with fire to purge the germs of sin and evil from us (Mark 9:49).

We do not know exactly what the punishment will be, where it will be, and what kind of fire it will be, and we don’t need to investigate; we should rather cooperate with the Lord today.

We who pursue the Lord and love Him need to take His imminent coming as an incentive and a warning. We shouldn’t speak casually.

We shouldn’t speak in a loose way concerning the Lord’s coming; rather, we need to have a hunger and thirst for pursuing the Lord and gaining Him.

Our heart needs to be stirred up to love the Lord, pursue Him, and enjoy Him in His word. Our work needs to be according to Him, and our service should be in the Lord.

God’s thought and wisdom is that Christ would come again and, at His second coming, He will come with reward and punishment. This reward and punishment will be determined by God’s thought and wisdom, not according to our thoughts.

Some may think they deserve to be rewarded, but if they do not do the will of the heavenly Father, they will not be acknowledged by the Lord at HIs judgment seat. Oh Lord!

God’s determination in His wisdom is to motivate us and compel us to cooperate with Him.

We need to cooperate with the Lord today because part of God’s salvation is that we should put the self aside, forsake everything for the Lord, and cooperate with the Lord for Him to work Himself into us.

This is a very difficult thing to work in us, so the Lord is both compelling us and incentivising us by His reward and punishment.

In the economy of God’s grace, reward and punishment are determined according to God’s wisdom.

God uses the reward of the coming kingdom, reigning with Him, and feasting with Him for a thousand years, to motivate us and attract us so that we may put the self aside and forsake everything (2 Tim. 4:8; Matt. 16:24; Luke 9:24; Mark 8:34).

He also uses punishment to compel us to forsake everything and put off all sin and evil. Oh, Lord Jesus!

May we open to His incentivising and compelling. May we cooperate with the Lord today. May we be willing to forsake everything, put the self aside, and allow the Lord to work Himself into us.

The second aspect of God’s intention with reward and punishment is to manifest His righteousness in His children. We shouldn’t think that now that we are saved, there is no more problem, for we are God’s children.

If this were the case, it would seem as if God’s grace comes to us without a sense of sobriety or righteousness. It seems as if God has no consideration of differentiations in the living and work of His children.

But God is not befuddled, nor is He the God of confusion; He is the God of order, and His approval is based on a clear and distinct realisation of such differentiations.

God determined to have reward and punishment in the future in order to manifest His sobriety and righteousness in us.

May we take the Lord’s coming as an incentive and as a warning in our Christian life today.

May we learn to cooperate with the Lord by enjoying Him, opening to Him, and fellowshipping with Him. Even more, may we be before the Lord concerning our work for Him and our service to Him.

The Lord is coming soon with reward and punishment, and we want to be those who hear His words, Well done, good and faithful slave.

We humble ourselves before the Lord today, we depend on Him, and we want to give Him our best cooperation.

Lord Jesus, we want to cooperate with You today so that we may live Christ and work for the Lord one with Him! Amen, Lord Jesus, may our daily life and work be in the light of Your coming. We take Your imminent return as a warning and as an incentive. Strengthen us into our inner man to put the self aside, forsake everything for You, and cooperate with You so that You may work Yourself into us. Amen, Lord, cause our inner being to open to You a little more today so that You may dispense Yourself into us. We want to live Christ today by allowing Him to live in us. We want to work for the Lord and serve Him, one with Him. We give ourselves to You, Lord. Work in us, work on us, and work Yourself into us. Manifest Your righteousness in us as we cooperate with You today. Oh Lord, our desire is to receive the reward when You return with reward and punishment. We want to live and work in such a way that we will be approved by You at Your coming! We love You, Lord, and we want to cooperate with You today!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ron Kangas on this topic, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1955, vol. 3, “Reward and Punishment,” pp. 42-43, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Experiencing, Enjoying, and Expressing Christ (4) (2025 December Training), week 48 (msg. 12), Christ Coming with Reward and Punishment, a Lamp Shining in a Dark Place, and Christ Appearing Privately to His Overcomers as the Morning Star – day 2.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – We love Thy coming, Lord! / We know not when ’twill be, / But turn from all distracting things / Thine own dear face to see. / We serve the living God / And wait His Son to see; / For this we need faith, love, and hope, / Increasing constantly. / In Thy dear presence, Lord, / We hope we all may be / A crown of glory and a joy / To those we then shall see. (Hymns #1306 stanzas 1-3)
  – O Lord, give us grace for Thy Kingdom to live, / To be trained that Thou may the reward to us give; / Make the Kingdom’s reality our exercise, / That its manifestation may be our great prize. (Hymns #947 stanza 7)
  – Lord, ever turn us from our soulish pleasures / To gaze upon Thy tender, loving face. / Oh, keep us running forth to meet the Bridegroom / And patiently attending to the race. / When Jesus comes, will we be in His presence? / When Jesus comes, will we His face behold? / Oh, let us not return to sloth and folly, / But jealously His loving presence hold. (Hymns #1307 stanza 3 and chorus)