Rewards and Reminders

"And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.” Hebrews 11:6(NLT)

by Alexandra Copeland
When bad or unsettling things happen in our lives, we tend to see it as punishment, but 1John 4:18(NIV) tells us that, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” God has given us a perfect blueprint for determining when something does or does not originate from Him. Fear and love cannot dwell in the same place; one will overshadow the other. God doesn’t dwell where fear has its abode. 1John 4:18 tells us that fear and punishment are hanging partners, so we can know definitively that God doesn’t punish His people. He chastises us, but He doesn’t punish us. We do enough of that on our own.

God set up the universe to respond to our lives with two things, rewards and reminders. There’s some shady stuff that happens to us at times, because the enemy pounces whenever he gets the chance. Some people mistakenly tag the devil’s shenanigans as punishment from God, but this simply isn’t the case. God has made us overcomers. We are more than conquerors in Christ! Jesus Christ has won the battle over satan already, and our responsibility as Christians is to stand firm in what he, our blessed Lord, has accomplished. Sometimes we don’t do this as well as we should. The enemy sniffs out our weaknesses and will try to use them against us. When he does, it hurts. Those ‘ouch!’ moments are reminders to strengthen ourselves in the Word and to tighten the spiritual weaponry that God has provided.

Some of us don’t see it that way. We see the reminders as punishment and negativity, but if we’ll flip the script and see it as a wakeup call, we’d be well on our way to gaining another spiritual notch on our belts. God is all good. He’s good all the time and all the time God is good. 1John 1:5 (KJV) tells us, “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” God set up the universe to respond in the most positive way to us when we are obedient and living in harmony and alignment with His Word. When we’re not, some funky stuff will happen.

Faith dictates that we cease with all the complaining about our circumstances, and understand that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing can happen to us that God can’t bring us out of. We need to take authority over our lives through the power of Jesus Christ!  Hebrews 11:6(KJV) declares, “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” There are a whole lot of Christians that have faith, but they don’t live with any power. Their faith is passive, and doesn’t even scratch the surface of what is available in Christ. God very clearly tells us in Hebrews 11 that faith is something we must have to please Him, and that we must believe two things to get the party started. We must believe that HE IS, and that HE IS a Rewarder to those of us that diligently seek Him.

A reward is something good received in response to something good that someone has done. You can’t expect a reward for not meeting the requirements to receive it. God has told us the requirements of the reward in Hebrews 11:6. He requires diligent effort. By the sheer nature of the phase ‘diligently seek Him’, we understand that a persistent level of effort is involved in this Christian walk. It’s a sure bet that God is more committed to our spiritual growth and maturity than we are. He values it higher than anything we can desire for ourselves. He knows that when we get to a point of being fully persuaded in the faith of Jesus Christ, our lives will take off in a phenomenal way. And He also knows that most of us will not be as attentive to our spirits as we should be.

Relationship building with God is the goal, and the end result will be rewards. God deeply desires to fellowship with us, His family. The fact that He, the Creator of the universe, wants to fellowship and connect with us in an intimate way is too much to wrap our brains around. He knows each of us intimately. He is familiar with every single detail of our lives, and knows even the number of hairs on our heads. Ephesians 1:11(NIV) says, “In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,” You and I, and all that are in Christ, have been predestined according to God’s plan. It’s not our plan. It belongs to Him. He knows where we’re supposed to be, when we’re supposed to be there, and He knows how to get us there.

We are not always the most operative when it comes to God’s plan for our lives. We think we know best. Sometimes we’re still at point ‘C’ when we should be at point ‘E’. God doesn’t push us. Love never shoves. Love gently guides. If we’re still breathing and amongst the living, we’re being guided to open our eyes to see God and His love in a bigger way. The universe is set up to totally and completely cooperate with God’s plan, and when we’re at odds with it, we’ll feel the push-back. So the reminders are ingrained in the way that things work. Instead of overreacting or allowing the enemy more room to zonk us, we should busy ourselves by trying to find out where we left an opening in our armor. And we should do more in the way of sharing, caring, and giving in accordance with the example of Christ.

God is rooting for us every step of the way to understand that our power, love, and strength through Jesus Christ is unlimited. We can’t expect to be the same people we were this time last year. Heavenly Father has commanded us to abound in Christ, to grow in the knowledge of him, and to walk in his example. In our lifetimes, we may not deal with or break every old man nature bad habit of ours, but to the extent that something in the way of our thinking, attitudes, or behaviors keeps us from fulfilling the plan God has for us, we have to address it. If we don’t, those reminders will keep cycling back. When we DO address the thing that keeps us from walking in God’s plan, and kick it to the curb, man, the reward is going to be oh so sweet!■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.