by Pastor JR Cuevas

But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6:5–6)

Is there any­thing more desir­able than earthly recog­ni­tion? It is true for unbe­liev­ers, and equally true for believ­ers. The ploy of being hon­ored for vis­i­ble accom­plish­ments or acts of ser­vices has led to the down­fall of many – even those whom many had regarded as war­riors in the faith. But what is it about this desire to be noticed, that tugs at the heart of even the most hum­ble of believ­ers? Ultimately, it is the desire to be rewarded for effort. This is no for­eign desire to human­ity and – con­trary to what many a Christian stu­dent may think – nor is it a mali­cious one, either. I can only remem­ber how many times as a young man in the min­istry I strug­gled aim­lessly with attempt­ing to rid myself of this desire to be rewarded for all the strain and effort that I felt I was plac­ing into the fur­ther­ance of the king­dom of God. In many ways it con­fused me, for I am not often given over to desires to com­pete and defeat my peers. If any­thing, I do take exhibit gen­uine and com­pas­sion­ate joy when I see oth­ers suc­ceed. But per­haps there was that drive in me what desired to at least feel as if the toil and agony with which I went about my work would not end in vain. And thus I would labor – but at the same time would desire for it to be acknowl­edged by some­one, even if it just be one saint. Oh how I would strug­gle might­ily in my heart, to keep my aware­ness of the Spirit’s work in pro­duc­ing Christ-likeness in me silent. In all hon­esty it was not so much out of a boast­ful spirit, but rather a desire to sim­ply be rewarded. I didn’t care so much about being bet­ter than oth­ers; rather, I was more inter­ested in earn­ing what I felt were my trea­sures. And so my heart rejoices greatly in my Lord’s dis­ci­ple­ship of me, as He reminded me with His own words what it means to gain last­ing rewards:

“But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.”

I had once heard that the mea­sure of a man is who He is before God and no one else. I take it a step fur­ther: The rewards of a man gained by who he is in the pres­ence of His God and no one else. Oh how won­der­ful it was for me to real­ize that the prob­lem was not my desire to be rewarded, for the Scriptures indeed moti­vate believ­ers to live for heav­enly trea­sures. Rather, the prob­lem was sim­ply my igno­rance con­cern­ing how is it that these imper­ish­able rewards are gained. Woe to those Pharisees who – hav­ing received so much recog­ni­tion from man con­cern­ing their out­ward works – received all their rewards in full. How tragic it is then, for a believer to receive so much recog­ni­tion from his fel­low men only to find out at the Bema seat of Christ that all the earthly admi­ra­tion gained from men will not with­stand the test­ing fires of the Lord. But blessed is the man who, while receiv­ing no earthly recog­ni­tion, sin­cerely hum­bles him­self before the Father in secret – plead­ing with and pray­ing to Him unceas­ingly in light of his help­less­ness apart from Him. Oh how blessed He is, for although he receives no earthly rewards for His efforts, He is seen by the Great Rewarder, who promises to reward the things done in secret? Should it not be, then, an great occa­sion of exul­ta­tion when none of my good works are seen by men? May it never be that I for­get that the Lord rewards the man for who he is and what he does in secret, lest I end up relin­quish­ing all of my heav­enly treasures.

Is there a place, then, for acknowl­edg­ment and recog­ni­tion in the dis­ci­ples life? After all, should it not be in the church’s great­est inter­est to con­sider their gospel min­is­ters as wor­thy of dou­ble honor? May I not mis­lead some­one into think­ing that there is no place for earthly recog­ni­tion for one’s works – for after all the great apos­tle Paul encour­aged his pro­tégés Timothy and Titus to show them­selves as exam­ples to all believ­ers. Was Paul encour­ag­ing his younger stu­dents in the faith to lose their rewards? May one never think such. But beware of for­get­ting that Paul pushed the younger pas­tors to show them­selves as mod­els to be emu­lated, not as idols to be wor­shipped. May you then remem­ber that earthly recog­ni­tion for what you did will be approved by Christ’s test­ing fires only in so much as the extent to which they stim­u­lated, chal­lenged, and encour­aged oth­ers to become fel­low dis­ci­ples of the Master. It was no won­der that Paul rejoiced in the lord­ship of Christ over his beloved Thessalonians, for they were his crown of exul­ta­tion. Let your works, then, be acknowl­edged by those to whom you min­is­ter – but only in such a way that encour­ages them and chal­lenges them to fol­low Christ and min­is­ter to His peo­ple even more fer­vently than you do. Otherwise, let it be seared in the core of your heart that the Lord rewards a man by who he is before Him and no one else. Oh may we renounce, then, all earthly acco­lades! Oh may we mor­tify all desires to be idol­ized, for eter­nal trea­sures are cer­taily better!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 1:00 am and is filed under Pastor's Corner. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.