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Dear God: give me my reward!
by James Barringer Do we deserve any credit for the good works that we do? On the surface it seems a little arrogant to suggest that we do. In Philippians 2, Paul says, "It is God's Spirit in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him." In other words, without God, we would not have the desire to please God - this much is obvious from looking at our lives pre-salvation, when we did basically whatever we wanted to do. Yet not only does God give us the desire, he also gives us the power to do all the good things we do; elsewhere, Paul says, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." The "I can do all things" doesn't stand on its own; it's only possible because of the second half of the sentence. So, if God gives us the desire and power to please him, it seems pretty clear cut. He deserves all the credit for our good works, and we ourselves deserve none. Or do we? Nehemiah sure seemed to think he did. In fact, it's pretty easy to argue that Nehemiah was obsessed with making sure that his good deeds were remembered and rewarded by God. In a book of thirteen chapters, Nehemiah uses the word "remember" a whopping nine times. In Nehemiah 5:19, he really states it bluntly: "Remember me with favor, O my God, for all I have done for these people." He obviously expected that he would be rewarded for his good deeds. So we have ourselves quite the paradox, don't we? On the one hand, God is the only one who deserves the credit for our good deeds. On the other hand, Nehemiah demands credit for his own good deeds. How can we reconcile this seeming contradiction? First, let me say that the theme of a reward, even a conditional reward which must be earned, is quite Biblical. In the Sermon on the Mount alone, Matthew 5 and 6, Jesus talks about rewards nine times. (It's probably just a coincidence that this is the same number of times Nehemiah uses the word "remember," but it's interesting anyway.) For a good example, let's look at Matthew 6:1-2. Jesus says that there is a right and a wrong way to give to the needy. If you do it secretly, expecting no honor or recognition from other people for your generosity, God will reward you. If you do it publicly, wanting glory in the here and now, God will not reward you. You are presented with a choice. If this, then good outcome. If that, then bad outcome. And God promises a reward if you choose rightly. You can see that the idea of rewards is not something that people made up, nor something that Nehemiah was claiming without reason. Jesus himself talked about the principle of rewards as if it was something that God took for granted. Of course you get rewards for doing the right thing - why wouldn't you? The whole Old Testament is packed with the theme of covenant blessings for obedience, and covenant curses for disobedience. You can see Deuteronomy 30:19, where Moses says, "This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live." Choose life, get blessings. Insert obedience, receive reward. Yet we keep coming back to this idea that we only have the desire and power to do those things in the first place because of God. God's Spirit makes me want to choose good when I used to want evil, and gives me the ability to choose good when some other part of me still wants to choose evil. He still does, quite honestly, deserve all of the credit for my obedience, and I deserve none. Why would he give me rewards for something he does? It's because he's my father, and like any good father, he delights in his child. I think that, if we assume God would use us for his own ends without rewarding us, we're slandering his generosity and goodness. The pattern we see in Scripture is of God being totally eager to sweep away our wrongs, while giving us the desire and power to do what pleases him - but delighting so much in us that he credits us, rather than himself, when we do the things that he deserves all the honor for. That's the way God's crazy-backwards love works. In fact, he's so backwards that he allowed Nehemiah's peacocking to be preserved for all-time in the Bible. You would think that demanding a reward from God should be condemned as pride, but it's not, because God does reward people and does not fault us for asking him to be faithful to his own promises. If we are obedient to him, we do have a reasonable expectation of reward - not because of our own merit, but because of God's faithfulness, so you can see how God rewarding us ends up being just another way that he gets more glory. It's important to keep our heads screwed on straight and note that the vast majority of the rewards mentioned in the Bible are for eternity, not for earth. It's kind of depressing to see, these days, how many people hear "reward" or "blessing" and start thinking money here on earth. God's not down with that. In the passage from Matthew 6 that I quoted earlier, Jesus was talking about people getting rewards for giving their money away to the needy - not to a particular pastor or ministry, but actually to the needy. The best rewards that you can get will involve giving your money away, letting God make you content with less in this materialistic culture, not expecting that he will let you live the upper-middle-class American dream while 500 million Christians worldwide live in poverty. This is a bit harsh but I don't want anyone to think I am teaching earthly prosperity with all this talk about blessings and rewards. The important thing to keep in mind is how all this points back to God. When we were sinful, God's generous and steadfast love pursued us into the depths of our sin, for no reason at all other than to make us holy so we could spend eternity - the ultimate reward - with him. We accept Christ, but keep sinning, and in his generosity he removes those sins from us before we even ask. Then he works inside our hearts, changing us from the inside out so we have the desire and power to live the life he wants us to live. Then, once we actually do the things he has empowered us to do, he loves us so much that he gives us rewards simply for responding to his love. He's so generous it hurts. Everything we have comes from him; everything we are is because of him. So, dear God, give me my reward. Glorify yourself by showing me how generous you are. Let me glorify you by knowing your peace and love, and give me the hope of a great and beautiful eternity for me to spend with you. Remember me with favor. Jim Barringer is a 38-year-old writer, musician, and teacher. More of his work can be found at facebook.com/jmbarringer. This work may be reprinted for any purpose so long as this bio and statement of copyright is included. Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |