the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Voice of the Lord
I am coming soon, and my rewards are with me to give to each person according to what he has done (Revelation 22:12).
Many believers seem uncomfortable with the idea of seeking reward from God, dismissing it as unspiritual and unnecessary. Yet the Bible does not deem it unworthy or unspiritual to work for a reward. Quite the contrary. From Genesis to Revelation, God uses the promise of reward and the threat of punishment to elicit from individuals proper behavior toward him and toward one another.
Perhaps our struggle over rewards reflects the ambivalence many of us experience over the place of desire and gratification in our lives. In his book, The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis writes, "If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit this notion has crept in from Kant and the stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards God promised in the gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak."
God promises to reward his children with good things, both here in this life and in the life to come. We need to cultivate in our own hearts a longing for the good things God wants to give us. He will surely reward us because he loves to give good things to his children.
...cultivate in my own heart a desire for the rewards that God promises to those who seek him.
DB
The Voice of the Lord, Copyright © 1998 by the Lewis and Harriet Lederer Foundation, Inc. Published by Messianic Jewish Publishers, Distributed by Messianic Jewish Resources, www.messianicjewish.net. All rights reserved. Used by permission. No part of this article may be reproduced in print or on the web, or transmitted in any form, without the written permission of the publisher.
