Given my personality and thoughts about myself I used to hang on to this verse in the vain hope I would get in and have a broken shed somewhere in the garden of someone else's mansion.
What scripture are you referring to? Perhaps we can examine it and discuss it.
Would I be a sheep or a goat? Did I work hard enough?
You are a sheep if you are born again. Goats are unsaved people. So don't worry about what you are.
Works accomplished, or the lack thereof, only indicate your status as either a sheep or a goat. They do not earn you entrance into the eternal kingdom. Good works are the evidence that Christ will use to determine if you are born again, just as bad works, or absent works, will be evidence of not being born again. This evidence is not used for his sake. He already knows who are his. I think it is that way for the sake of those watching the Judgments Christ passes at the end of fallen man's history. No accusations of unjust Judgments will be possible when based on supporting evidences.
The ultimate reward is eternal life because of our faith in Jesus. Believing in him and his claims, his death and resurrection to reconcile us back to the Father and be like him. That being the case then the ultimate reward is secure.
And I think that's what the Bible is referring to when it says "crown of life". That crown has nothing to do with your ministry performance here on earth and the crown that work secures.
That being the case then the ultimate reward is secure. It's not based on my works but on what Jesus has done for me.
See, you know all this.
As i started to realise that this was the case I lost the incorrect focus I had and just want to be more like Jesus. If I lose my focus on myself and my fears of standing before God then I can be more like Jesus.
The only time you can, and will, have no fear of standing before God is if you've been like Jesus in this earth. That is when you can take comfort in having no fear of the coming Judgment:
"love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 18There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love." (1 John 4:17-18 NASB)
John is saying if we fear the Judgment it is because we are still not perfect in regard to Christ-like, loving character. Not perfect character, of course, but as in 'characterized' as walking in the fruit of the Spirit. It's the fourth type of soil Jesus talked about in the parable of the sower. It is in this mature (or as I like to say, 'maturing') place that we find peace and calmness in the face of the impending Judgment of Christ. Our works confirm our place in Christ and give us peace about that. Until we get to that place in our lives we have some level of fear about standing before God one day. It's a healthy fear. We should fear God and his Judgments. It's just that the more you mature in Christ, the less fear of that you're going to have. Confidence, as the scripture above says, comes from being loving like Christ is loving.
Do I work for a reward? Now I don't, (ok to be honest I do still slip up here and when i do ) I just pray to God I want to be more like Jesus, love people where they are at, forgive others who have hurt me, do to others as I would want them to do me.
May I suggest you adopt a new understanding of what your reward is. Without question you'll be praised for your love towards others, but the rewards we're talking about here are the potential impact your love and your work have on other people that would bring them to faith and service to Christ and who will then become your reward at the Judgment.
As to what rewards (over and above the ultimate reward ) we are given when we stand before God I have no idea.
The Bible is clear about this. Your reward is other people you lead to, or build up, into Christ.
I know this is not taught in the church, but the church can't even teach tithing the way the Bible plainly teaches it, so don't be surprised that the established church we honor and respect doesn't know some things that are plainly taught in our Bibles.
Our focus should be being like Jesus and and to be honest I think when we stand before God he will judge our heart attitude.
Yes, but a heart attitude will not earn you the particular reward of someone's presence in the kingdom if they don't respond to, or persevere in the kingdom message and end up being lost in the fires of the coming Judgment that divide this life from the next.
As for the reward I can only leave it up to him. He is fair and righteous in his judgement
Don't leave it up to him as in 'don't do anything and just see what happens'. You will have zero reward of others in the kingdom if you do that. You will have the reward of the kingdom itself, but you will have nothing to show for work that you never did in the first place on this side of the Judgment. You'll be like a person who escapes a burning house with nothing but his own body and has no reward of rescuing somebody else from the fire because they did not do anything to rescue them, or their efforts to do so ended up being in vain.
