How God Will Give Rewards
Daniel Webster, the Secretary of State under President Millard Fillmore, was eating dinner with a number of prominent people in the Astor Hotel one night when someone asked him what was the most profound thought he had ever had?
In reply, he said that the most profound thought he ever had—indeed, the one that had influenced his life more than any other—was the fact that one day he was going to have to appear before God to give an account of his life.
We should be sobered by the account we must give for all our time on earth! Having many decades by our name does present a challenge!
Let’s see: We ate all our meals on time, we did a pretty good job of sleeping, we seemed to watch all the TV shows we liked, shopped at all the stores we liked, made time for many other recreational pursuits. But were we as routine in our service to God?
F.B. Meyer observed:
Some live for many years but at the end have little or nothing to show for them. Take out the wasted hours, hours of drowsy lethargy, hours of luxurious sloth and self-indulgence, and only a few hours of real life are left. 1
Similarly, G.D. Watson said:
There are many Christians, it would seem, who miss their true mission in life. Although they may be saved in the end, yet because of lack of perseverance, or by being influenced by other people’s conscience, frustrate the special vocation to which they were called.2
Not too many people think about standing before the Judge of the universe one day.
We think about Heaven’s homecoming and that blessed moment we first see Jesus.
We think about our subsequent introduction to the angels and that emotional reunion with our family and friends.
We also think about our glorified state and the perfections of our body.
But as for the Bema judgment seat (where our works will be examined to see what kind and how many there were), we scarcely give this a thought.
Helping us anticipate this appearance before the Judge of all the earth, Tozer exclaimed that “all your marked Bibles, all your jolly, joke-telling banqueting Christian friends”3 will mean nothing to you in that hour when you stand before the Ineffable.
The scene will be awesome! The outcome declared that day will affect your eternal future!
Pulling back the curtains of time in order to give us a glimpse into eternity future, the Bible describes how the Lord will distribute rewards.
Instead of handing out cheap mementos on that day, and instead of beginning his speech with the acknowledgment that what he is about to give is but a token of his gratitude, we can forget the token stuff! When God gives, he will do so lavishly—and generously! In a manner worthy of his name!
While growing up, my two brothers and I received Christmas gifts from my grandmother on my mother’s side, whom we called Nana. Although Nana was a well-to-do woman, one would have never known that by the gifts she gave. She must have gone to a dollar store during an after-Christmas sale to buy what she bought.
Consequently, after many years of receiving cheap gifts, we put Nana’s gifts back under the tree as soon as we saw her name on the tag. And there those gifts would remain, until, many days later, when we finally had to open them so we could say in our letter to her what we were supposedly thankful for.
Nothing like this will ever happen in Heaven! Instead of the obligatory watch and some yawner of a speech, God will reward in an extravagant way.
When the Lord distributes his rewards, he will also do so in an astonishingly kind way. I Corinthians 4:5 declares that the Lord “… will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts.”
What does that sound like to you? To me, it sounds like lower-the-boom time! Yep, better watch it—all those deeds no one else saw, and all those thoughts no one else knew, are now going to get exposed!
But would God really do that? He who washed all these sins away with his blood and promised to remember them no more—will he choose at this time to expose his bride by broadcasting her secret sins far and wide?
This verse sets a scenario like that aside by saying, “Then each man’s praise will come from God.”
Whoa! This outcome isn’t at all what we suspected! Instead of a gaze resulting in judgment, there will be praise resulting in rewards.
A.B. Simpson declared, “All that can be recognized he will cherish, and all that he can forget, he will love to leave in oblivion.”4
What God will be revealing on that day are not the sins we feel ashamed of (since those have been blotted out, to be remembered no more). Instead, he will reveal things no one ever knew—those unspoken desires, those noble aspirations, those heartfelt longings for God, those whispered praises and closet prayers. What we forgot, and perhaps never saw come to pass, will be acknowledged by the Lord with expanded commentary and great celebration.
Imagine Jesus praising you? Zephaniah speaks of him rejoicing over us with gladness and singing (Zephaniah 3:17).
Oh, to be tenderly held by the Lord as he sings a love song to us! I’m telling you—in the whole wide expanse of God’s universe—there’s no thrill that will even begin to compare with the thrill of receiving effusive praise from God! After this, we will never be the same!
And what makes this scene all the more blessed is the fact this will be an individual and not a collective experience. It won’t be the whole church courted by our God. It will be you, it will be me, upon whom his adoring gaze will be fixed and to whom his love songs will be offered.
Notes:
1. F.B. Meyer, Joseph, (Fort Washington, PA., CLC Publications, 2002), p.115.
2. G.D. Watson, Bridehood Saints, (Hampton, TN., Harvey and Tait Publishers, 1988), p.42.
3. A.W. Tozer, The Attributes of God, Volume 1, (Camp Hill, PA., Christian Publications, 1997), p.17
4. A.B. Simpson, The Christ in the Bible Commentary, Volume Two, (Camp Hill, PA., WingSpread Publishers, 2009), p.121.
