It’s tricky but true that God incentivizes faithful living today with a promise of future rewards

4 min read

“Look, I am coming soon, bringing my reward with me to repay all people according to their deeds.”

-Jesus, Revelation 22:12

Don’t you love all the rewards programs available these days? Everybody seems to have one. Airline companies, fast food restaurants, grocery stores, gas stations… they all have some kind of offer to incentivize doing business with them.

As a long-time patron of a rather well-known coffee company, in fact, I recently enjoyed a reward for my patronage. I got an iced caramel macchiato with extra espresso and extra caramel drizzle, a value of $7 or $8 if I were paying.

Of course, as my wife reminds me, I probably spent a couple hundred dollars with the company before I earned the freebie ; )

But anyway, speaking of rewards, are you familiar with God’s rewards program? Did you know he offers incentives, too? This doesn’t get a lot of mentions these days, but the idea comes up quite often in the Bible.

It may be that the reason we don’t talk about it much is because the concept of rewards can be a little tricky. Biblically speaking, it’s easy to get confused on the difference between a gift from God and a reward from him. To help, here are a couple of points to better understand God’s one-of-a-kind rewards program:

1. Salvation is not a reward. The Bible is explicitly clear that salvation and all of its related benefits (e.g., forgiveness of sin, justification, fulness of life, freedom from condemnation, eternal life, etc.) is a GIFT. Throughout Scripture, a relationship with God is described as something given to people gratuitously… at no charge.

 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians 2:8-9

Because Christ paid the price of our redemption, it comes to us purely as a gift. We cannot perform for it or pay for it. Salvation has never been about what we do for God, but rather what God did for us. Bottom line, the only way to be reconciled to God is to accept his free gift of salvation by placing your faith in Jesus. Your pockets are empty on this one. All you can do is receive it.

2. God will reward diligence. Now that we’re clear on the fact that salvation is gifted – not earned – let’s notice one more thing: God has an incentive program that rewards faithfulness and devotion.

That is, once we are in a relationship with God, he gives us incentive to live faithfully for him by promising to reward us one day. What? Yes, on top of the kindness God has already shown us by giving us life through his Son, he also promises additional rewards in the future. These rewards will correspond to how we lived. Paul explains it this way:

So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. 2 Corinthians 5:9-10

This means that someday all of our efforts to love and serve Jesus will be acknowledged and rewarded. Nothing will be overlooked. Lest we believe that all the time, energy, money, and passion that we invest in our relationship with him doesn’t matter, the Bible is clear that, in fact, it does matter now and it will matter even more then.

Graduating with Honors

We could loosely compare it to a graduation service. By God’s grace, one day every believer will graduate into the very presence of God. Everyone will get the same white robe, the same heavenly dwelling, and the same streets of gold. But for some, this commencement will involve some special honors. In other words, those who gave more of themselves in the service of Jesus will receive more of a reward from him.

But will it even matter? As long as we’re there, with the Lord, who cares about the rewards, right? Not so fast.

If we take Revelation 4 as a clue as to how it may all play out, one of the wonderful things about being rewarded by the Lord someday will be the joyous privilege we will then have to cast those rewards at the very feet of Jesus, the one who gave his life to get us back. There, my friend, is the incentive.

Wait for It

Sadly for most of us, if we cannot see it or have it right now, we’re not interested. We would rather live for maximum pleasure and benefit in the here and now, even if means passing on a later and greater reward.

But like most really good things, there is a wait involved with God’s rewards program. The rewards will be given, but not necessarily today. We just have to take God’s word for it that someday he will do as he has said and reward those who kept their eyes on the prize.

Free drinks and airplane tickets are wonderful, but these will pale in comparison to God’s rewards. Friend, keep on participating in God’s one-of-a-kind rewards program. One day you’ll be glad you did.

It’s a new day with God. Run with it.