No Favoritism

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

NO FAVORITISM

Rom 2:5-11

5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 God "will give to each person according to what he has done."   7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism.

NIV                    

Although we considered the sweet reward of glory, honor, and peace because of doing good by accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior and gaining eternal life to boot, we did not spend much consideration about the reward for those who do evil, by rejecting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. What we know is that trouble and distress is not the desired outcome as a result of a person’s life. It does seem rather strange that many people work so diligently at storing up for themselves to enjoy their golden years of life trying to gain as many creature comforts as they can, only to end up with trouble and distress. We would think as those who rejected Jesus stand before him on the last and dreadful day of judgment and find out their names were blotted out of the book of life and their trouble and distress will be upon them as they receive their reward of being cast out of heaven into the lake of burning sulfur. We, on the other hand, finding our names have not been blotted out, will be ushered into God’s rest. The amazing part of this is that there can be no distinction between all of us that have our names in that book of life. It will not matter what ethnic or national background we come from. All of us who believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior will stand united before him. Praising his name forever and ever. It is going to be the greatest worship service we will have ever attended with perhaps millions of voices singing all in perfect harmony, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. However, the greatest mystery that should be a life lesson for us is that God does not show favoritism. This means that those whose names have been blotted out from the book of life, all receive the exact same reward, none will perish any more than any other in the lake of fire. It also means that we whose names have not been blotted out of the book of life will all receive the exact same reward of being ushered into the eternal kingdom of God. There will not be anyone with any more of a reward than another. There will be no one with more jewels than anyone else, and if there were such a thing as jewels in our crown, although there is no scripture proof of that, no one would have any more jewels than another, no matter how many “good deeds” they think they have done on the earth. Yes, there are all sorts of crowns, but no jewels are associated with the various crowns that all who accepted Jesus and believed unto the end will receive all those crowns, such as the crown of life, the incorruptible crown, the crown of rejoicing, righteousness, and glory. All of us will receive all those crowns equally because God does not show favoritism. Once again, this should be a life lesson for us in that if God does not show favoritism then we should live our lives free of any favoritism, which means we should love everyone equally.