Is it possible that I could lose the rewards the Lord has already given to me?
Thank you, my dear friend, for this very good question! The rewards, I believe, are those special awards given by the Lord Jesus to His saints for their faithful service while on earth, and these are given at the Judgment Seat of Christ. Thus, I feel that these are to be received or lost in the future, once we have gone to be with the Lord in heaven. Certainly, if our service on earth is not praiseworthy, there will be loss of those possible rewards that we could have received if our service on earth had been better. I’m not sure that I could say that any of us have been given “rewards” as yet, though we certainly have been given gifts. So here, we might want to make a distinction between “rewards” and “crowns”, as opposed to “gifts” and “talents”. The gifts of the Lord are given to His children on the earth in order to edify the church, the assembly of believers (1 Peter 4:10; Ephesians 4:7-12). We read about “talents” in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:28-29, “Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” To better understand this parable, I will quote the Morresh Bible Dictionary in the section on parables: “…while the Christian waits for his Lord, he should be faithfully using the gifts entrusted to him.” William MacDonald, in his Bible Commentary on these verses says: “…Those who desire to be used for God’s glory are given the means. The more they do, the more they are enabled to do for Him. Conversely, we lose what we don’t use. Atrophy is the reward of indolence.”
Now, I want to emphasize that there is a great difference between salvation and rewards. Salvation is not considered a reward as it cannot be earned but is rather God’s gift of grace through faith in the Lord Jesus; nor can it be lost (Ephesians 2:8-9; John 6:37). On the other hand, we do read about “crowns,” the crown of life, a crown of glory, etc., which the Lord Jesus will give to His own when we see Him (1 Corinthians 9:25; James 1:12; 1 Peter 5:4). These crowns are not interpreted as salvation but are given to Christians at the Judgment Seat of Christ after we are raised up to be with the Lord, and are rewards for faithful service and/or faithful endurance of testing or trials while on the earth. There is no thought here of eternal life being “earned” through such faithful activities, as again life is a gift of God’s amazing grace. Again, the rewards are, I believe, bestowed at the Judgment Seat of Christ. We can read more about rewards in Matthew 10:42; 1 Corinthians 9: 17-18; Mark 9:41; Revelation 22:12.
And now, as to rewards or possible losses at the judgment seat of Christ, this is described in II Corinthians 5:10: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” I believe that 1 Corinthians 3:14-15 tells us more about what will happen at this judgment seat of Christ, “If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.” MacDonald in his Bible Commentary says of 1 Corinthians 3:15: “…In this case, the servant will suffer loss, although he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire…It should be clear from this verse that the Judgment Seat of Christ is not concerned with the subject of a believer’s sins and their penalty. The penalty of a believer’s sins was borne by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, and that matter has been settled once for all. The man is saved despite the fact that his works are consumed by the fire. “
Thus, my dear friend, rewards are given to Christians at the Judgment Seat when we go to be with the Lord Jesus noting the faithful service of each saved person individually. However, if our service is found to be useless at the judgment seat of Christ, then there will indeed be loss, though the believer is yet saved. In Matthew 6:5-6 we see what happens as to rewards if we act out of a pure heart as opposed to doing good works only for the praise of men. Christians are warned in 2 John 8, “Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.” May the Lord richly bless you and all who read this response! (SF) (607.3)