Losing the Rewards

Nobody wants to be a loser. Merging back into the crowd as an “also ran”—a participant without distinction, having a number but not a name—is hardly a welcomed experience. To train and try, only to come up short can be very disheartening. Sure, the hurt feelings will go away, but the memory of it may not.

John Milton wrote the classic, Paradise Lost. The theme of this classic—irretrievable loss: perplexing in its onset, tragic in its consequences—is interwoven throughout Scripture. In Genesis, for example, we see Adam and Eve losing the ideal life God had planned for them. However, even before this grievous loss in the garden, there was a far more incomprehensible loss when Lucifer lost a perfect life in Heaven!

Can you imagine a magnificent angel becoming a hideous devil, and other angels becoming demons, and the bliss of Heaven being exchanged for the torments of hell? All these losses are too great for language to describe, or for the human mind to fathom.

Remember Esau? He ranks near the top of the Bible’s losers list! To be the recipient of immense favor, the inheritor of enormous blessing, only to give it all up, shocks the sensibilities of a thinking man! One’s brain would have to be fried or scrambled to forfeit one’s birthright for a dish of stew! How could he do something like this?

There’s no denying the fact that the people of God can resist God. Clear evidence of this was on display while the children of Israel were on their way to the Promised Land. There were ten tests enroute to this destination. And did you know that God’s people failed every one of them?

The exorbitant price for this hardness of heart is now well-known—forty additional years stuck in the wilderness!

What is not as well-known, though, is what happened to the people of God later. Under Joshua, a new generation finally made it into the Promised Land. But then—you guessed it—they lost the Promised Land! And the price for that loss was ten times as much—more than four hundred years of misery!

So, given this penchant for losing what’s valuable, we shouldn’t be surprised when Scripture warns of another loss that could occur. In John’s second epistle, verse 8, God’s people are warned to watch diligently, lest they forfeit their reward. In Revelation 3:11 we find Jesus telling his church to hold tightly what they have earned, making sure no one takes their crown.

From prehistory to post-history, then, we see this theme of lamentable loss to be a stark reality and not just a potential possibility. Losing Heaven, losing Eden, losing the birthright, losing the Promised Land, and one day losing the rewards of Heaven—not a commendable history! Nor a desirable prophecy! For who wants to be a loser?

I’ll tell you who wants you to be a loser: According to Scripture, a sinister and supernatural force will vigorously challenge every pursuit of God’s reward. For if by deceit or defeat Satan can get you to miss out on these rewards, that’s exactly what he wants to do. His mindset being: If he can’t keep you out of Heaven, at least he wants to deprive you of Heaven’s greater blessings.

Some people say, “Well, as long as I get into Heaven, that’s all that matters.” But that’s not all that matters! God wouldn’t have said what he said, and Satan wouldn’t be doing what he is doing, if these rewards didn’t matter. So instead of minimizing these rewards, we need to think about them, and do so in a very serious way.

To that end—purposing never to become victims, self-inflicted or Satan-inspired—it is important to examine some of the ways this grand larceny (affecting Heaven but transacting on earth) can occur. Woodrow Kroll explains:

Losing rewards is possible in two ways. We may lose them by default, by not seizing the opportunities that are presented to us. But we may also lose rewards by defect, by living our lives in such a way that we do not meet the criteria to qualify for rewards.¹

Extending this thought while yet narrowing it, G.D. Watson wrote, “Some who desire to be saints of the larger magnitudes, when the testing adequate to those magnitudes are brought to bear upon them, fail, and dwindle down to lesser ranks.”² Thus, they lose the reward they desired because they failed the test they needed to pass.

It really shouldn’t surprise us that Satan is highly intrigued by any plot to steal someone’s rewards. After all, Jesus did call him a thief (John 10:10)! So apparently, ever determined to deprive, the devil will plot differing schemes, each designed to keep us from receiving God’s rewards.

Now among these schemes is a rerouting of lives from the direction the Lord wanted them to take. Reflecting on this particular practice, A.B. Simpson observed:

The failure of any man or any people cannot hinder the fulfillment of any of God’s purposes. He has other instruments ready; and it is an awful thing when any man, or any church or race are excused by the Lord, or when they let another take their crown.³

Colossians 2:18 identified another way rewards can be lost, saying, “… let no one cheat you of your reward.” This statement, made while discussing the intrusions of legalism, pinpointed the downside of following spurious standards having to do with food, drink, festivals, and sabbaths (Colossians 2:16).

The real danger in these standards is a shift from the Lord’s saving work toward one’s ability to be good. For under this system of righteousness, one’s right standing before God is based not on what Jesus did on our behalf, but on what the believer does to comply with some man-made list. Such a practice generates pride—way too much pride, since as G.D. Watson put it, “We are co-laborers with Christ, but not co-saviors with him.”⁴

The real danger in man-made codes for living is the unwarranted assumption that these codes represent God’s thinking, and that they are an adequate summary of Scripture. And who thinks up this stuff? The prideful Pharisee who lives within!

To get suckered into the ways of legalism is to walk a dead-end road, for which there will be no rewards. James S. Stewart said that legalism is “ever seeking to increase its claim upon God by multiplying the regulations and ordinances it proposes to obey.”⁵ Uncovering the hidden motivation of legalism, Stewart said that “the identification of religion with respectability … has been a successful method of eluding the cross.”⁶

Galatians 1:6 calls this encroachment of legalism “another gospel”—meaning it is no gospel at all!

stand fast in the liberty God gave us and not get entangled in a yoke of bondage. But if we do get entangled, thinking we can earn God’s heavenly favor by our earthly works, the warning of the next verse must be taken to heart: Christ will not profit us—not in this life, and not when it comes to bestowing his rewards.

In Mark 9:41 Jesus identified another factor for reward-forfeiture when he said that the one who gave the cup of water in his name would not lose his reward. This implies the cup of water given without the name of Jesus will be without reward. Indeed, any act of mercy—however needed and however sacrificially and generously supplied— will not be deemed good in the eyes of God if God himself was effectively left out of this transaction.

While this fact certainly doesn’t encourage buttonholing a recipient by “chapter and versing” him or her incessantly, it does mean, minimally, speaking about Jesus to the one you’re helping. That’s because “do-goodism” without Jesus disqualifies a work from reward consideration.

To the church at Philadelphia Jesus said, “Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown” (Revelation 3:11). You will notice that this particular encouragement to persevere is accompanied by an implied warning that one may lose his or her reward. But how might this occur?

The problem of faithfulness without faith is one way this could occur. People trying to do the right thing in the wrong way will produce nothing worthy of a reward. For without faith, the Bible says, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). The governing principle being: To crank out our service for God with no real dependence upon God will result in a work that can’t be rewarded by God.

To those parading their good works before others, wanting their approval and desiring their admiration, Jesus said: “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:1).

Given this premise, that deeds done with a wrong motive will forfeit God’s reward, it is almost as though God were saying, “You wanted others to see what a good deed you were doing? All right, they saw it—and that’s going to be the extent of your reward.”

No one wants to stand around God’s bonfire seeing his or her works going up in smoke. To avoid this scene, the Lord informed his church of criteria for the rewards, and corresponding criteria that will cause a believer to lose out. This kind of awareness will enable us to do the needed inspecting now, to judge as Jesus will one day judge, so there won’t be this terrible loss at the end.

Oh, what a day! Can you see it in your mind’s eye? With excitement in the air, the heavenly-throng now assembles. Overwhelmed with anticipation, they keep saying to themselves, “Today is the day! The day when the great Giver—he who is not unjust to forget our labors of love (Hebrews 6:10)—is going to give his rewards!”

Having experienced such anticipated excitement in his own soul, Edward Payson, that mighty prayer warrior of the nineteenth century, spoke these words on his deathbed, “If men only knew the honor and glory that awaited them in Christ, they would go about the streets crying out, ‘I’m a Christian! I’m a Christian!’ that men would rejoice with them in the blessedness of which they were soon to partake.”⁷

As you begin to imagine this rewards scene and put yourself in it, what do you suppose you will be thinking as you stand in that assembly? Will you be wondering if you’re going to be rewarded? And will you wish you had thought about these rewards while you were on earth? Sensing that something awesome is about to occur, will you be excited … hopeful … expectant … a little afraid?

Imagine, however, the satisfaction Paul had when he came to the end of his life. This man had done everything God wanted him to do—and he knew it! Is this true of you, I wonder? Are you ready for the rewards? Or are you quite sure that you’re not ready? Please settle this question today.

Whatever you do, don’t leave it unanswered—or wrongly answered. Remind yourself repeatedly that in all the epochs of eternity there will scarcely be a day like that great day when God gives his rewards. And therefore, the one thing you don’t want to do is to lose what could have been, and should have been, yours.

Will you refuse to let Satan steal them from you? Will you, from this point on, order your life and invest your time in pursuits God can reward? Or will you hobby yourself to death with soul-desensitizing pursuits that do nothing for the kingdom?

There is time to make the right decision. And if you do, when your time comes to an end, your anticipation of coming rewards will thrill your soul.

Notes:

1. Woodrow Kroll, Facing Your Final Job Review, (Wheaton, Crossway, 2008), p.121.

2. G.D. Watson, Tribulation Worketh, (Hampton, TN., Harvey Christian Publishers, 2000), p.14.

3. A.B. Simpson, The Christ of the Bible Commentary, Volume One, (Camp Hill, PA., WingSpread Publications, 2009), p.255.

4. G.D. Watson, White Robes, (Hampton, TN., Harvey Christian Publishers, 2000), p.51.

5. James S. Stewart, A Man in Christ, (Vancouver, Regent College Publishing, 2002), p.86.

6. Ibid., p.36.

7. F.W. Bourne, Billy Bray, (Shoals Lane, IN. Old Paths Tract Society, 1937), p.28.