08 May Three New Ways to Increase Your Eternal Rewards
GOD REWARDS FAITHFULNESS TO HIS VALUES, NOT OURS
One of the gates in the ancient wall around old Jerusalem is called the Damascus gate. If you go out that gate, the road leads you to Damascus. There’s another gate that’s called the Joppa gate. If you go out that gate, the road leads you to Joppa. If you want to go to Joppa, you don’t go out the Damascus gate. It won’t take you there.
This is a metaphor, making the point that our actions must lead to our goals. If they don’t, we must either change our actions or change our goals.
For example, we cannot live beyond our means when we are young and hope to retire in financial comfort when we are old. We must either change our goal (retiring in financial comfort) or change our actions (living beyond our means now).
Last week, we talked about starting with the end in mind… and as Christians, that includes understanding that we will all stand before the Bema (like an Olympic medal platform) after we die, to receive rewards for our actions in this life.
If we make that decision… to live now for the purpose of maximizing our rewards at the Bema… what changes might that require of us now?
New motives
Of course, we must start living for the things that will be rewarded when we stand before the Lord. We cannot continue simply living for selfish purposes. That would be like going out the Joppa gate and hoping to get to Damascus.
The interesting thing, however, is that that might not change all the things we are doing. It just might change our motive and our attitude while doing them.
For example, if you have a job as a carpenter, or an engineer, or a waiter, and you decide you’re going to start living your life with the end in mind, it doesn’t necessarily mean you quit your job. It might… but probably it won’t.
You will probably keep doing what you have been doing, but with a higher motive. You begin serving the Lord by doing your job well and by treating others with dignity and respect.
New priorities
Though our new motives might not change our employment, they might change how we use our discretionary time and money. There is nothing wrong with vacations, and I think there are times when we simply need to rest. We read in the Bible that Jesus and His disciples went away from people for the specific purpose of resting (Mark 6:31).
But it might mean that instead of taking a vacation where we do nothing but relax and enjoy ourselves, we might take a missions trip where we help drill a well, or build a church, or teach the Bible.
Or we might use discretionary time for kingdom purposes. We have friends who, every year, head up a team of volunteers who dedicate countless autumn hours to make thousands of pounds of candy, package it and sell it at Christmas time, using the money to support scholarship students in Kenya.
Or, instead of buying a new car this year, we might delay it a year and give the money to purchase goats for families in rural Africa, altering the lives of entire villages.
So, new priorities might change how we spend our discretionary time and money.
New definitions
Doing rewardable things is often a matter of being faithful to little things that might not seem rewardable in the moment.
One day, a monk came to Mother Teresa complaining that he was being given too many administrative duties, and that those duties were keeping him from serving the lepers, the cause for which he had joined that monastic order.
He said, “They are keeping me from working for the lepers! My job is to work for the lepers!”
Mother Teresa said quietly, “Brother, your job is not to work for the lepers. Your job is to belong to Jesus.”
We may want to do great things… to serve the lepers… but in the serving of the lepers, there may be times when we simply have to be faithful to administrative duties. We need to redefine what it means to serve God.
The wonderful thing about this is that when we stand before the Lord, the Lord is just as pleased, and we are just as eternally rewarded, for being faithful to our administrative duties as we would have been by directly serving the lepers.
In the pursuit of the ministries that God gives us, we may have to do things that we are not good at, things that we don’t like, things that are painful. But they are all things that must be done.
If those tedious, unpleasant, and frustrating things are what God has given us to do that day, then we serve Him by being faithful to those duties. And in doing so, we are pleasing to God and are rewarded for eternity.
Jesus prayed, in John 17:4, “Father I have glorified you by completing the work you gave me to do.”
So when we complete the work that God has given us to do, even if it is tedious, or unsatisfying, or painful, we glorify him. He’s pleased with us. He rewards us.
Conclusion
Two passages help give us new perspectives on our life ministry:
“Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary” (Galatians 6:9).
“Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58).
As we serve the Lord with new motives (doing our work as unto Him), with new priorities (making the highest use of time and money) and new values (doing little things as though they are big things), we will finish the work God gives us to do, we will be pleasing to Him, and we will be richly rewarded in heaven.
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