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FK: "When I sin I am obviously rejecting God. There will be consequences for this. There will be earthly punishment and discipline, and I will likely be hurting someone else, and certainly myself. Repentance and confession can certainly mitigate this. The closer I stay to God the more fulfilled my life will be here on earth. In addition, whatever "rewards in Heaven" means will be affected by the level of sin on earth by believers."

Please forgive me for continuing on in this vein, but I would really like to know more about earthly punishment for sins.

Oh, no problem. I'll "try" to answer almost anything. :) When I wrote that, I was sort of using "earthly punishment" and "discipline" interchangeably, but someone could make a case for a distinction, I suppose. In any event, I was thinking along these lines:

Heb 12:7-11 : 7 Endure hardship as discipline ; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8 If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline ), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! 10 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

I love this passage because it amazingly shows how God can turn the negative of sin into an actual positive. I have certainly made mistakes in the disciplining of my own children, but God never does.

So, by this passage, the practical effect "can" be anything that falls under the category of "hardship". Now, I do NOT think that all hardship is a result of being disciplined, i.e. Job, but it "can" be. Frankly, I'm not even sure that we can always tell the difference. However, the point is that there is indeed consequence for sin on earth even after we are saved. And, from the story of Job, and he wasn't even in trouble with God, we learn exactly to what lengths of hardship God is capable of arranging. :)

Therefore, even though I do not think my future sin will jeopardize my salvation, I still have practical reasons to not sin with abandon. :)