Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Heavenly Rewards

The Bible talks about working for rewards. This has nothing to do with salvation, other than only those who have been saved will be rewarded for their good works. We sometimes think that God shouldn’t be paying us for our good works, since Jesus has already done more for us than we can even imagine. Perhaps we think it is more spiritual of us if we serve God without thought of reward. But the Bible tells us to lay up treasure in heaven. Whatever we think of the concept of working for rewards, God thinks it is a good idea.

Perhaps it would be helpful if we would look at it a different way. Forget about the reward God will give you, for a moment, and think about some of those great godly servants you have encountered. Perhaps some of them have already gone on to be with the Lord. You saw how they served the Lord greatly. Now think about some of these people who have been saved, but they hardly ever come to church. They might do something for the Lord occasionally, but not very often. Suppose that at the judgment one of these people was standing next to the godly servant you were think of before. Jesus looks at the record of the godly servant’s life and hands him his reward. Jesus looks at the unfaithful servant’s record and hand him his reward. These two people compare what they received and they discover that they both received the same thing. Is that fair to the godly servant? More importantly, is it just? If it isn’t just, it isn’t going to happen.

If rewards weren’t important, God wouldn’t talk about them so much. I don’t think that we should make rewards our only motivation for serving God. For that matter, we aren’t even sure what our reward will be. But it is good for us to give thought to the reward we will receive at the end of our days here on earth.