As the believers in Christ, we must never be content merely to have our sins forgiven, as wonderful as that is, for that alone does not prepare us to enter into the joy of our Lord, and to be in His presence, when He returns.

Three times in his writings the apostle Paul directly warns the believers against the false teaching of security without responsibility—the notion that they could live their lives however they wanted and still be qualified to enter into the kingdom of God. And yet, it seems the vast majority of Christians today have indeed had their Christian lives frustrated by the “empty words” (Eph. 5:6) of this very teaching, even if they would never express it in such terms; perhaps that is why Paul was so strong in this regard!

It is not that their understanding of salvation is entirely wrong. No doubt it is true that everyone who has ever believed in the Lord Jesus as their Savior can, and absolutely should, have the full assurance that they will reign with Him “throughout all the ages” of eternity (Rev. 22:5), because by that time, every believer will be an overcomer (Rev. 21:7).

But, in addition to the eternal reigning with Christ in the new heaven and new earth, there is also the reigning with Him during His 1,000 year kingdom on this present earth (Rev. 20:4-6), which will be the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens (cf. 2 Tim. 4:18). It is in regard to this 1,000 year period that Paul sought to warn the saints.

He told the believers in Corinth,

Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be led astray: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the perversely effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous; not drunkards, not revilers, not the rapacious, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
— 1 Corinthians 6:9-10

To the believers in Galatia he said,

Now the works of the flesh are apparent, which are such things as fornication, uncleanness, wantonness, idolatry, using drugs for sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, fury, factions, divisions, sects, envying, drunkenness, carousings, and things like these, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I have said before, that those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
— Galatians 5:19-21

And to the saints in Ephesus he said,

For this you surely know, that no fornicator or unclean person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God; let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience.
— Ephesians 5:5

And in a more general way, he also warned the Galatian believers,

Do not be led astray; God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that will he also reap. For he who sows unto his flesh will reap corruption of the flesh, but he who sows unto the spirit will of the Spirit reap eternal life.
— Galatians 6:7-8

So, what we see in these verses is that it certainly is possible for genuine believers in Christ to be excluded from the 1,000 year reign of Christ on the earth, if they live their lives here in a dissolute way; even though their sins are forgiven, that may be a time of discipline for them, rather than one of feasting together with the Lord and all the saints (Luke 14:25-29). In fact, what the New Testament shows us is that the reigning with Christ in His 1,000 year kingdom is absolutely not a free gift given by the Lord, but a prize to be won through our seeking after Him.

The apostle Paul, for one, spent his entire Christian life striving to win this prize. And that is what we will consider in the next Note in this series.

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— 11 August 2026 —