Welcome to the in-touch podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, February 25th.

Join us in the final message of our series, Countdown to Judgment, as Dr. Stanley reveals the meaning of the crowns of reward and how they will be used in eternity.

Now, if you'll turn to 1st Corinthians chapter 3 for a moment, and you'll recall in this chapter

in the first few verses that Paul is writing to the Corinthian Church, and they're having a little,

shall we say, church skirmish over something. And that is, some of them said that, well,

Apollos is a far better speaker than the Apostle Paul. And Oh, no, Paul is a theologian of theologians.

And so they were having a little dissertation about all that. And so here's what Paul said in the fifth

verse of this third chapter. What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed,

even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted,

Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters

is anything, but God who causes the growth. And then here's what he says. Now he who plants and he who waters

a one, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

And we've spent time talking about that very fact that each one of us will receive the reward that we

deserve, listen, not compared to someone else or what they did or didn't do, but each one will receive award

according to our good deeds. Now, I want us to think about what these look like and what this

reward is all about. And I want you to think about it, first of all, in this light, that one of

the rewards is going to be the fact that you and I are going to have absolute,

total, complete intimacy with Jesus Christ.

He says in Romans 829, he says, God is predestined us to be conformed to the lightness of his son.

And how many times have we talked about this?

That is, an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ means one that is

not just personal, but it goes beyond that. An intimate relationship is a deep abiding relationship.

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