Last year when I read John Bevere’s The Bait of Satan, there was a segment that caught my attention. He was a youth pastor at the time and was counseling one of his kids. The kid wanted someone to tell him what he wanted to hear, but Bevere asked him this: You can have a youth pastor’s reward or you can have a buddy’s reward; which is it? The kid thought about it and realized what Bevere was asking. He said he wanted a youth pastor’s reward.
There is a reward for believing those whom God has put in authority in our lives. I am not talking about a blind, ignorant faith, but a trusting, loyal faith. The Bible speaks so much about listening to Godly counsel that entire libraries would not be able to contain the depths of it, let alone just this blog post.
Bevere got this message from Matthew 10:41: “He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward.”
We live in perilous times where each man does not listen to God but each man is doing what is right in his own eyes. We also live in times where people want to hear something that pleases them and will heap up for themselves teachers who tell them what they want to hear. And who the people listen to will get the reward of such a person.
Jesus constantly reprimanded the Pharisees because one of their primary sins was doing their religious acts in public for the purpose of being seen. They wanted the praise of their sheep, and Jesus said that was all the reward they were going to get. That would be the only benefit they would get out of all their legalism, rules, regulations, and religious pretense: their own pats on the back. Paul used to be one of them and he was the most zealous of them all. He eventually saw the futility of it all and counted it all as loss compared to knowing Christ. The word “loss” here is more accurately translated as “dung” or bodily waste. He learned that to receive the praise of man was utterly worthless.
After Christ, Paul sought a different reward – an eternal reward. That is why he was able to endure such suffering and encouraged Timothy to do so as well. He completed the race that God had him run, and he received a reward that is beyond what any of us could imagine. Paul’s reward was after his death, yet the reward Christ is talking about is also for the here and now.
The young man Bevere counseled would have taken a very wrong direction if he had not listened. He would have sought his dream too early and been too immature to handle it even if he got it and would have lost it all in the end. You never want to jump the gun on God. Instead, he listened to wise counsel. While Bevere didn’t say what happened to the young man, any obedience he did would have benefited him in the long run.
I experienced such choices too. When in college, I was studying civil engineering and I got to a point where I didn’t like it anymore. I was just learning to write, and I considered changing to a creative writing major. But some advice I heard, even though it was not directly given to me for this situation, was this: when you do not know what to do, go back to the last thing you know for sure God told you to do and do it until it is finished. I did not have a new direction to go so I stuck with the program for another year. After that, I changed my major to computer science where I finished my degree.
I can now see the benefits of the patience and obedience. Had I just stayed with my degree plan, I would have graduated one or two years earlier during which I would not have gone to the 2009 Urbana Convention where God started the chain reaction of events that led me to my current career as a physics teacher. Because I was obedient to Godly advice, I received a “prophet’s reward.” I got to see God move and be positioned where God wanted to use me. He’s not done positioning me, but I can see God’s hand in directing me in every step I have taken. Of course, I was far from perfect in either obedience or learning what I needed to learn. Had I known what I know now, I’d have taken my college courses far differently than I did then. But God is faithful even when I am faithless. As long as I stay in my walk of obedience, I will reap a “prophet’s reward” not just here in this life, but in the life to follow.
Everything we do is not done in a vacuum. God is going to use it one way or another for His glory, but He’s also going give us what our deeds, actions, and faith deserve. If we choose to live in sin, actively living our own way and doing our own thing, we will get the reward for such actions and it will be death and decay. But if we choose to live by the wisdom God has given us, we will hear the greatest praise that can be given to us: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Who is your counselor? Whose reward are you seeking? A buddy? A mentor? A pastor? A man (or woman) of God? God Himself? It disturbs me how many people claim to be Christians and yet they are so concerned about others’ opinions about them. The fear of man is a powerful vice, and it has destroyed the faith of many. They wanted the reward of their peers and they got it. But it will cost them the true reward of heaven. And just as Achan received the “spoils” of war from Jericho, it lasted him only a few days, he never got to enjoy it, and it cost his life, his family’s lives, and the lives of 36 soldiers from Israel. Had he waited just a few more days, he’d have the rewards and the spoils from the rest of the cities along with his brethren.
Go after the prophet’s reward, even if the word of obedience requires you to do something foolish before others. God is a faithful rewarder of those who diligently seek Him, and He never gives out skimpy prizes. Obey and follow Christ and you’ll get the riches and the blessings that come with Him. Every person who has tasted that will never go back. That’s where I’m heading. The things of God and the person of God are the best things to pursue and to have it is better than the entire world’s praise and resources combined. Go after God.
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