Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.
Look to yourselves is a call to guard against deceivers and deceptive teaching, so that what has already been gained through labor for Christ is not lost and a full reward is instead received. The loss to be feared is the forfeiting of spiritual work already accomplished, and the reward to be secured is complete rather than partial.
Holding fast in this setting means rejecting the claim that love for Christ releases people from obedience to God's law, and equally rejecting reliance on keeping the law and Jewish ceremonies for salvation apart from Christ's blood, while affirming Christ's divinity. It also means remaining faithful to the true doctrine of Christ by resisting deceivers who deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Neither error leaves the doctrine intact, for one sets aside obedience and the other sets aside the Saviour's blood and divine person.
For God's workers this watching of self means staying certain of His clear direction and moving forward in reverence under His guidance despite criticism and unbelief. All who truly serve God join in helping push His work upward on its steep climb, so that labor already accomplished is kept secure for a complete recompense. For a wife the same securing of reward comes by laboring together with her husband for God rather than seeking to please relatives, acquaintances and friends, with the eye single to God's glory and serving Him with the whole heart. That means leaving father, mother, sisters, brothers and friends to cleave to her husband, loving him better than anyone on earth, making his wishes her own, and living with him in harmony and happiness under his headship as one who obeys while he loves her without bitterness as his own body. That joint labor means working to keep her husband free for God by laying no hindrance in his way but cheering, encouraging and holding him up by prayer, and by such devotion and consecration she becomes fitted and prepared for Christ's coming instead of coming short and being weighed in the balance and found wanting.
Look to yourselves is a call to guard against deceivers and deceptive teaching, so that what has already been gained through labor for Christ is not lost and a full reward is instead received. The loss to be feared is the forfeiting of spiritual work already accomplished, and the reward to be secured is complete rather than partial.
Holding fast in this setting means rejecting the claim that love for Christ releases people from obedience to God's law, and equally rejecting reliance on keeping the law and Jewish ceremonies for salvation apart from Christ's blood, while affirming Christ's divinity. It also means remaining faithful to the true doctrine of Christ by resisting deceivers who deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Neither error leaves the doctrine intact, for one sets aside obedience and the other sets aside the Saviour's blood and divine person.
For God's workers this watching of self means staying certain of His clear direction and moving forward in reverence under His guidance despite criticism and unbelief. All who truly serve God join in helping push His work upward on its steep climb, so that labor already accomplished is kept secure for a complete recompense. For a wife the same securing of reward comes by laboring together with her husband for God rather than seeking to please relatives, acquaintances and friends, with the eye single to God's glory and serving Him with the whole heart. That means leaving father, mother, sisters, brothers and friends to cleave to her husband, loving him better than anyone on earth, making his wishes her own, and living with him in harmony and happiness under his headship as one who obeys while he loves her without bitterness as his own body. That joint labor means working to keep her husband free for God by laying no hindrance in his way but cheering, encouraging and holding him up by prayer, and by such devotion and consecration she becomes fitted and prepared for Christ's coming instead of coming short and being weighed in the balance and found wanting.