What are the rewards?

I take six chapters (so far) in God Rewards to address the question, ”What are the rewards that God promises in the Bible?”  There is no way to adequately summarize the contents of those chapters here.  But we can begin to answer the question with a simple and powerful truth:  Because God is good, His rewards will be good.    One cannot overstate both how good God is and how good will be His reward.

But we can begin to imagine...  Think of something pleasant in your life and in your relationships with God and people.  Now imagine it even better and imagine it lasting forever.  Think of your richest experience of gratitude, your most profound experience of love, your quietest experience of peace, your highest ecstasy of joy; these are but hints of what is to come in greater and greater measure – to the faithful.  What the wafting fragrance from the oven is to the taste of a brownie in your mouth, so is the godly pleasure we experience in this life to the boundless pleasures we will experience in God’s presence.  

Being unfamiliar with the teaching or having an erroneous understanding of it, some people are uncomfortable with the notion that God rewards.  Let me put your mind at ease on a couple of points. 

First, heaven is not our reward.  Heaven, which is to live with God and His people for all of eternity, is a gift of God’s grace to all those who recognize their sin and accept God’s gift of forgiveness.  God’s rewards are something additional, given to those who live faithfully.

Second, it must be emphatically stated that rewards are not material blessings in this life.  The Bible does not promise health and prosperity in this life.  (I address this erroneous notion in greater length in God Rewards.)  To the extent that God blesses materially in this life, those material blessings are best received as provision for life’s necessities.  Material wealth in this life, therefore, is most profitably invested in the Kingdom.  God will then reward financial faithfulness - as He rewards all faithfulness - in heaven.

Third, you might be uncomfortable with the notion that some will have more in heaven than others.  You cannot imagine someone not feeling, or being tempted with, pride for having more than others.  Neither can we imagine someone not feeling or being tempted with envy of the person with more.  Qualitative differences in heaven must inevitably lead to pride and envy, it is supposed.  However, there will be neither pride nor envy in heaven; because we will be free of sin in heaven.  Those who have more in heaven will be clothed in humility and those who have less will be joyful for the reward received by others.

Come to think of it, don’t you want it to be so?  Don’t you want the dear brother or sister in Christ who forsook everything to become a missionary; who left the comforts of home and lived in a smoky hut and took on all manner of deprivations... don’t you want that person to have a reward for his or her service?  Doesn't that person deserve more in heaven than the contented Christian who did little to advance the Kingdom, who was comfortable his entire life, having made few sacrifices for the sake of Christ?  If it seems fair to you that the former would have a greater reward, it is because, in your heart, you understand “God is not mocked, what one sows, he will reap.” (Gal. 6:7)

If you want to know more about the rewards God has promised to the faithful, start by reading the verses I've provided.  Continue to read this blog and, when it is available, get God Rewards, with its fuller explanations.