REASONS FOR REWARDS
A. It is What Makes Life Meaningful.
What makes every golden minute and every diamond second matter is that God thinks your life is important enough to evaluate for reward or loss. (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)
B. God Enjoys Rewarding Us Far Beyond What We Give or Do.
Matthew 6:19-21: ”Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth…but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. Matthew 19:29: “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.” Luke 6:38: “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”
Ephesians 3:20-21: “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
C. To Remind Us of Our Fundamental Relationship with Him: We Are Receivers; He Is the Giver.
God wants us to trust Him. He wants us to depend on Him for everything and to see that He is always good to the believer – all the time. We are receivers, not the givers; the servants, not the masters. We are in the position of being served, not the servers. Mark 10:28-31: No matter what we give to God, we receive back even more. The Christian life is a life of receiving, from beginning to end, and will be throughout eternity.
D. People Tend to Choose What They Believe Will Most Powerfully Satisfy Their Needs and Desires.
If we really believe that He will reward us, then we know our desires and needs will be more abundantly met for all eternity by our obedience. The desire for immediate gratification outside the will of God gives way to a mature waiting in hope. Isaiah 55:1-2
THE RELATIONSHIP OF REWARD TO SELFISHNESS
Selfishness ought not to be defined simply as the pursuit of our own self-interest. Instead, it should be defined as the pursuit of our self-interest in our own way rather than in God’s way.
A. Rewards and Love
Since “love” is a preeminent virtue in Christianity, true selfishness often involves a pursuit of self-interest that violates the law of love. But no one who seriously pursues heavenly treasure can afford to be unloving. As Paul pointed out in his great chapter on love, all seemingly spiritual and sacrificial activities are reduced to nothing in the absence of love. (I Corinthians 13:1-3). Loveless activity will no doubt go up in billows of smoke at the Judgment Seat of Christ as though it were so much wood, hay or stubble. (I Corinthians 3:11-15).
B. Rewards and Selfishness
C. S. Lewis comments on this: We must not be troubled by the unbelievers when they say that this promise of rewards makes the Christian life a mercenary affair. There are different kinds of rewards. There is the reward which has no natural connection with the things you do to earn it, and is quite foreign to the desire that ought to accompany those things. Money is not the natural reward of love; that is why we call a man a mercenary if he marries a woman for the sake of her money. But marriage is the proper reward for a real lover, and he is not a mercenary for desiring it. A general who fights well in order to get a peerage is a mercenary; a general who fights for victory is not, victory being the proper reward of battle as marriage is the proper reward of love. The proper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given, but are the activity itself in consummation. - The Weight of Glory And Other Addresses, by C. S. Lewis.
REWARDS ARE MORE A MATTER OF MORALE THAN MOTIVATION
Knowing we are on the winning team makes it possible to endure anything and give everything. The purpose of eternal rewards is to encourage Christians to persevere in obedience. Whenever promises of reward appear in Scripture, they are intended not to incite Christians to selfishness but to encourage them lest they become discouraged. (Galatians 6:9). The obedience to which God calls us involves poverty, persecutions, loneliness and other difficult things. Christians will inevitably share with their Lord in His suffering. (Matthew 10:21-25). God comforts them with the assurance that their work for His sake will not go unrewarded. Remembering that we a are going to reap a rewarding harvest helps us to live unselfishly.
OUR REWARDS MAY BE LIKENED TO OUR SPIRITUAL GIFTS
Our rewards seem to be primarily a matter of responsibility and maybe opportunities, but they will not be like badges or medals we wear as in the military. Remember that all of our crowns will be cast at the feet of Christ, for only He is worthy. (Revelation 4:10-11). Also, Matthew 25:21, 23 and Luke 19:17-19 show us our rewards consist of authority over either many things or many cities. They may include galaxies of the universe. All believers will live in the millennium and in eternity with the Lord. Some will reign with Him, but, because of loss of rewards, evidently some will not. How gracious is our Lord that He even rewards us at all! Praise His holy name!!
