Our Work, His Reward

UV 568/10,000 Our Work , His Reward 2 Chronicles 15 v 7 “Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded.” This uni-verse combines an exhortation to be strong, a warning not to be weak and an assurance that our work shall be rewarded. The word used “ shall” implies a certainty not a probability. We are commanded to be strong, effective, steadfast, faithful and uncompromising. We are not to be weak, confused, ashamed, fearful, indolent or inconsistent. We need to be diligent, persistent and persevering. Indeed, God rewards perseverance of faith. After praying on the rock of agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus strengthened Himself and set His face as flint as He commenced His journey towards the Cross. He knew His reward awaited Him and that He would be seated at the right hand of the Father’s throne and that millions of believing souls, through the ages and generations that followed, would be saved and be part of His inheritance. In ancient Israel when the kings and the people departed from following God, He sent vexatious times upon them. Then King Asa listened to the prophecy of Azariah the prophet in the words above. He took courage and dared to put away the idols that even his own mother adored but God hated. The Israelites as one people once again heard their king and renewed their covenant of faithfulness with God. As a result or as a reward, God’s presence was with them and they had once more all round peace. Though salvation is inherited by all of us by virtue of our faith, our deeds having no part in securing so great a salvation for our souls, our deeds or our labour of love would be rewarded. Different dispensation of rewards for each of us is in place in God’s scheme of things. Nothing we have done is in vain. Even a glass of cold water given to slake the thirst of a disciple will be rewarded either in time or in eternity. While all our sins have been blotted out, whether they be crimson or scarlet, by the Blood of the Lamb, the Book of Rememberance will keep account of every little and big thing that we attempted for the Lord. Once we were surprised to hear a prophetic revelation about my father-in-law who had been a man of the world all his life but confessed a little faith late in the evening of his life. The Lord revealed that He had prepared a glorious mansion for him in Heaven with twelve golden steps leading up to it and that he would enjoy a greater reward than even his mother who had lived a faithful life for many years. In dispensing rewards, the Lord’s justice will prevail. The eleventh hour labourer would be paid as much or even more than the one who volunteered in the first hour, implying that at whatever late year or stage in our life we started serving the Lord, it would not matter. It matters however how wholeheartedly we did our work for Him and communicated the message of His work for us to others. What we do secretly for Him, whether praying in secret or fasting in secret or giving in secret, He will reward openly. Are we rewarded only in the ‘after life’ or here and now? Since eternal life begins the moment we believe and receive Jesus as our absolution and our solution, our rewards too begin in the present life but continues in much more glorious form and ways in the life to come. Prateep V Philip