Encouragement for the Family of God by Kenton Cheek
29 December 2025
Reading From Revelation 20
“Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.”
—Revelation 20:11-15
When we read the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ together, it is difficult to ascertain the precise chronology of events. I greatly admire the vivid charts and timelines produced by Bible scholars that seem to make the flow of future events make sense to you and I. But just when we seem to have it all figured out, another Scripture from our Bible reading comes along and makes us ask additional questions. Because the future is something we have not experienced yet, we must trust the Lord and lean upon His promises. If we stick to the truths that have been revealed and not get entangled in endless controversies over the apocalyptic minutia, then looking forward to the Second Coming can be a motivating and joyous thing. We know for sure that Jesus is coming again and that we need to do all that can to be ready for Him.
The coming final judgment is a certainty that is echoed all throughout the Holy Scriptures. Notice that there is not just one book mentioned. There is the Book of Life (elsewhere called the Lamb’s Book of Life) and there are other books. It is my view that all those who have been born again by faith, repentance, confession, and reception of Jesus as Savior and Lord will have their names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. We are saved and have our names written there not because of our deeds, but because we have accepted and been transformed by the grace, mercy and love of God the Father. Our restoration to healthy, life-giving relationship with Him is made possible through the atonement of God the Son and applied to our lives by the power of God the Holy Spirit.
Other books will be opened. There are books in Heaven in which all the deeds of mankind are being recorded as Jesus prepares a place for those who know Him and who are known by Him. We will be rewarded for the deeds we have done, but let us consider our good works and our sinful ones.
As a Christian, good deeds have eternal significance because my destiny is in the New Heaven and the New Earth. There I will live forever in the Presence of the Almighty. As I live my life following Jesus, I yield my will to Him, giving Him my whole life, and the Holy Spirit works in me and through me to accomplish the will of the Father upon the Earth. Thus, my good works are really God working through me. Philippians 2:12-13 says, “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.” [1]
The punishment and penalty of all my sins was paid for by Jesus in the Garden and on the Cross. Isaiah 53:5-6 prophesied of Jesus, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” And so my good deeds are the result of God working through me, and my sinful deeds were paid for by God. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
What a marvelous, glorious inheritance we have been given in Christ Jesus! We will be rewarded in the New Heaven and the New Earth according to the level of surrender to Him during our mortal lives here in our present reality as it is in that yielding that God the Holy Spirit is able to flow through us and into the lives of our families, churches, friends, communities, regions, nations and the world. What will our rewards be? We know that our primary reward is to enjoy the Presence of God without any of the hindrances of sin or mortality.
But we also know that our destiny is to judge and reign with Him, and so rewards might have something to do with what tasks or levels of responsibility we will be given.[2] Perhaps our level of surrender to Him in this life will determine our level of responsibility we will have in the next. As we endure trials and tribulations in this life, God is expanding our capacity for more; more of Him in our lives in this life and in the life to come. This should inspire us to surrender to Him all the more, continue in the faith, be transformed from glory to glory, and endure to the end to become more like Jesus.
“Lord Jesus, we look forward to Your glorious appearing. Empower us and sanctify us by Your Holy Spirit to make us ready. Inspire us and strengthen us unto good works that glorify our Father in Heaven. Let us be diligent to store up our treasures there where nothing will decay. Prepare us by Your grace, mercy and love to receive all that You have for us in our eternal destiny with You as Your eternal family. In the Name of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords we pray these things. Amen.”
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
—Ephesians 2:1-10
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
—I Peter 1:3-9
[1] Galatians 2:20
[2] I Corinthians 6:3, II Timothy 2:12
Forever Home in the Eternal Family of God 
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