A little dissection of 2 John 8
“Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive your full reward.” 2 John 8
God is forgiving…all the time. We are accountable to God…all the time. These two truths do not cancel out each other; they go together like hand in glove. If my hand is not in my glove in sub-zero temps, it freezes. The glove is still real. The glove is still accessible. It’s just dormant. Inanimate. Not giving warmth. It does nothing for me unless I put the glove on.
John is letting believers know that we ARE accountable to watch–weigh and carefully examine–our thoughts, motives, words, ways, and behaviors.
Why? So that none of us LOSE what has already been accomplished in our lives by the Lord and those who have helped us.
It strikes me that the word LOSE is the Greek word APOLLYMI which primarily means TO DESTROY. We LOSE what we destroy, whether we dismantle our character or our testimony through laziness, indifference, grudges, bitterness, disobedience, “doing it MY way”, whatever…DESTROYING is at the base of the word LOSE.
We all go through STRONG seasons in our relationship with the Lord, but I don’t think I’m the only Christian who has walked through some rather luke-warmish, less enthusiastic, or more standoffish seasons with my Savior.
But John tells us IF WE WATCH ourselves–just keep a checkup from the neck up and keep a guard over our hearts and ways–THEN we WILL RECEIVE a FULL REWARD.
This excited me: That word for RECEIVE doesn’t indicate a PERFECT track record! NO!! The Greek word John uses, APOLAMBANO, means “to take BACK, to take AGAIN, to RECOVER…and receive.” This shows me that John fully understood the ups and downs in so many of our lives.
In fact, he and his brother James were once called SONS OF THUNDER by Jesus because they wanted to call down fire on a group that didn’t follow the Lord! But later in his life, John was known as the Apostle of Love. Big Difference. John understood accountability. He also understood forgiveness.
No matter how up or down, in or out your walk with the Lord may have been, you have the right to RECOVER and TAKE BACK and RECEIVE a FULL REWARD.
How? Simply this: WATCH yourself. Simply begin–or begin AGAIN–the practice of weighing and judging your thoughts, motives, and ways by the Word of God and the still small voice of the Holy Spirit within you.
And the great thing is this…we believers ALL want an AWAKENING to GOD in our nation. THIS is how it will start. WITH YOU. WITH ME.
Blessings!
Dorothy
© Dorothy Frick, 2026