In the greatest sermon in the history of the world, the Sermon on
the Mount, our Lord Jesus Christ repeatedly speaks about God rewarding us.
While we experience many blessings and much help from God in this life, Jesus
is focusing on future reward for those who suffer for God.
"Blessed are
you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil
against you because of me.
Rejoice and be glad,
because great is your reward in heaven, for
in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
(Matt. 5:11-12 NIV)
God only gives us hints and glimpses of what our reward in Heaven
will be like. It will certainly be far better than whatever we can imagine.
Yet, if Jesus did not want us to think about reward in Heaven, He would not
have mentioned it repeatedly as a motivation to keep serving God when serving is difficult
and costly.
All Christians will sometimes be asked to make sacrifices and
suffer in some ways for Christ. I remember reading a book by
Elizabeth Elliot about suffering. She defined suffering as
having what you do not want or wanting what you do not have. That’s a very
insightful definition of suffering from a Christian who experienced a lot of
suffering. Her definition covers big examples of suffering and small ones. Defined that
way, it is easier to see how God does ask all Christians to suffer for Christ.
Sometimes the suffering is more obvious. I was blessed to live in
a Muslim majority nation for fourteen years. While living there I constantly
shared the Good News about Jesus with my Muslim neighbors, urged them to follow
Christ, and I constantly encouraged other Christians to also share the truth
and love of Christ with all their neighbors. I knew that any of my Muslim
neighbors who came to Christ as a result would likely suffer in many ways. And
some of them did suffer. I believed it is worth it.
Once, while living in Indonesia, God blessed me with a dream which
reaffirmed that following Jesus is worth it no matter what we suffer here. I
don’t expect or want anyone (even myself) to believe this is true just because of my
dream. We believe this is true because of God’s Word. Nevertheless, my dream
did reinforce this truth in my heart.
In the dream I was in Heaven. I was just walking around the
streets. I did not see Jesus or God. In the dream, the streets were in fact
made of gold. But that is not what made a lasting impact on me. I did notice
that there was absolutely no darkness anywhere. Not even a shade of shadow
under the benches along the road. This was a very unusual visual effect and
different from anything I have ever seen with my waking eyes. This visual
effect was unusual, but it is not what impacted me so powerfully and caused me to weep every time I remembered the dream for some time afterwards.
What impacted me most was not anything I saw or anything I heard.
It is was what I felt. For just a few minutes, for the dream was not very long,
I felt absolutely pure joy. Even now as I write, it brings tears to my eyes.
I’ve never felt anything like it before or since. I’ve been blessed with happy
days and occasions. But even on the happiest days of my life, like my wedding
day, or the day Joy was born, or seeing people saved, my joy has always been
mixed with other feelings. There was always some worry, fear, or anxiety, at
least a little, mixed in with the joy. But for those few moments in that dream
about Heaven I felt pure, unalloyed, undiluted, joy.
When I woke up from the dream I wept and wept. I could no longer feel that pure joy, but just remembering feeling
it moved me. I could not even share the dream with Hope immediately because the
feelings were too strong to talk about it. I couldn’t even think about it
without crying, partly out of joy and partly out of longing.
My friends, I have no doubt that pure joy, and much, much more,
await us who follow Jesus. God blessed me with a tiny sample of that joy in a dream, and I believe the dream was accurate because of God's Word:
He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of
things has passed away.
(Revelation 21:4 NIV)
Any sacrifice God asks us to make, any suffering He asks us to
endure, is very small compared to the glories of eternal life in the New Heaven
and New Earth:
I consider that our present sufferings
are not worth comparing
with the glory that will be revealed in us.
(Rom. 8:18 NIV)
Whatever you’re facing, don’t give up and don’t give in.
Follow Jesus, even on the path of suffering that leads to a cross, especially
on that path. For “great is your reward in Heaven”.
Hebrews 13:16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others . . .
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