“For the Eyes of the Lord run to and from throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him.” 2 Chronicles 16:9

In the New Covenant God says He has given us a new heart – “I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statues, and you shall keep My judgments, and do them.” Ezekiel 36:26:27KJ

“According to the grace of God which is given to me, I have laid the Foundation.  But let every man take heed how he builds upon it.  For no other foundation can any man lay that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.   Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest…if any man’s work endures, 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.” 1 Corinthians 3:10-12, 14-15

How can there be differences of reward when God has said it shall all be of grace?  When Zechariah saw the vision of the finished temple that pointed to our life and abiding place in Christ, the Lord said that it would come forth with the shoutings and cries of “It was all of Grace!” Zechariah 4:7   It is not what we build but how we build that God is speaking about here.  We don’t earn something by doing something for God, but we end with results that endure because of building God’s Way.  There is only one Foundation and that is Christ.  How we build once we are in Him is what results in work that will last for eternity.  When we build with “silver and gold” (these metals always  speak of God’s  Life) it results in “reward.”  This parallels how Jesus describes the work we are to do in John 6:29 -when the people asked Him what they should “do” to do the “works of God,” He answered them , “This is to do the works of God – believe in the One He has sent.”

When we trust Christ to be the Life, our new Heart and Spirit within us because of  our union with Him, the work that comes from this is then God’s own work being done through us and by Him, and so it has eternal and lasting results. There will then be “reward” just because only His work can last, for His work is to cause others to be born into His same Spirit.  This very birthing of new lives in the One True Life will be our “reward” which will be part of our joy forever, for these are born into Eternal Life Himself!

If we build with wood and hay, our doing our own kind of works for God, instead of building with the material of gold and silver, (again, these being His works that come through us as we walk by trusting Him to be our new Heart, Life, Power and Strength),  such work can not  last, as it will not result in His  kind of fruit.  Enduring fruit must come from the Enduring Vine.  If we have only “our” works, then, though we shall still be saved, we have still have Life forever in Him, it shall be as “through fire” as when a  person makes it through a house fire but loses all their possessions in the process.
-L. A.