REWARDS WE CAN’T IMAGINE

 So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time … and in the age to come, eternal life.”
Mark 10:29-30

Recommended Reading: Matthew 6:16-18

16 “Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 17 But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

COMMENTS:  It is human nature to want others to notice our good deeds but Jesus tells us good deeds should not be displayed or bragged about because God notices and desires exclusive privilege to bless and multiply and reward good deeds.  Fasting has been a valuable tool to help us focus on prayer and convince ourselves how important it is to seek and do God’s Will and not to indulge in our selfish will and nature.  Today’s scripture tells us to fast in secret without showing off.   Pride has a way of infiltrating and corrupting even good deeds and spoiling their benefit both on receiver and giver if left unchecked and unrepented.

I have often wondered about the reward scripture speaks of waiting faithful followers of Christ in heaven.   A mansion and streets of gold, for me, would be desirable for someone selfish and still carnal in nature, not someone freed of satan’s temptations and lures and distractions.

Granted, I am not disputing the beauty of what God is preparing for us, but think the reward He has for us most precious to Him and to us is much different.  I believe the answer is revealed in a contemporary Christian song written by Ray Boltz “Thank you!”  Read the lyrics below and see if your conclusion matches mine:

 “I dreamed I went to heaven
You were there with me
We walked along the streets of gold
Beside the crystal sea
We heard the angels singing
Then someone called your name
You turned and saw a young man
He was smiling as he came

He said friend, you may not know me now
But then he said but wait
You used to teach my Sunday school
When I was only eight
Every week you would say a prayer
Before the class would start
One morning when you said that prayer
I asked Jesus in my heart

Thank you for giving to the Lord
I am a life that was changed


Thank you for giving to the Lord
I am so glad you gave

Then another man stood before you
And said remember the time
A missionary came to your church
His pictures made you cry
You didn’t have much money
But you gave it anyway
Jesus took the gift you gave
And that’s why I’m here today

Thank you for giving to the Lord
I am a life that was changed
Thank you for giving to the Lord
I am so glad you gave

One by one they came,
As far as the eye could see
Each one somehow touched
By your generosity
Little things that you had done, sacrifices made
Unnoticed on the earth, heaven now proclaims
And I know up in heaven
That you’re not supposed to cry
But I was almost sure
There were tears in your eyes
As Jesus took your hand
And you stood before the Lord
And He said my child look around you
For great is your reward

Thank you for giving to the Lord
I am a life that was changed
Thank you for giving to the Lord
I am so glad you gave
I am so glad you gave
I am so glad you gave

Did you notice the reward noted in the song?  The great reward described in this song, and the reward I believe we will enjoy most in heaven will not be riches or mansions or beautiful surrounding or even youthful never aging bodies, but in discovering how God used our humble and even half-hearted, at times, acts of obedience to transform the lives of others – the ripple and compounding effect of those acts that resulted in large numbers of people learning about and following Christ   I also believe we will be among that multitude reaching out to our ancestors revealing to them how their faithfulness impacted our lives.   I know within my own family my mother and father were instrumental in teaching and leading me to Christ.  Yet, my mother’s great grandmother and grandfather were equally instrumental on her and my father coming to Christ.

So take a few minutes and read again the words to this wonderful song and worship the Savior who bought your salvation and redemption and is now preparing your eternal home for you.   Imagine that home also includes using your obedience to witness and persuade others to come to Him too and will continue to do so even after we enter heaven’s gates.

Well, keep in mind Christ has promised to return but has not told us when.  But the signs and circumstances describes sure sound like what today’s circumstances and godless behavior are approaching.

Personally, I believe Christ’s return will take place soon and believe the only way His return might be delayed would be if a revival and repentance of both unrepented and sinful people as described in 2 Chronicles 7:14 took place.  I believe such a revival took place many times through history and also believe Christ’s return and all the end time judgment described in scripture.  It will be a terrible time but limited duration.  Satan will orchestrate a full attack on Christians and upon God’s chosen people the Jews.  Many will suffer persecution and even martyrdom but Christ will return to first take his people home and away from this terrible time.  Then He will come back again 7 years later to stop and judge satan and all who followed him.

So the big question is, will the dangerous path the world, and most people, are on continue.  A path that would cause the extinction of man if Christ did not return to stop it. 

So what are we to do.   Follow Daniel’s example and be and remain faithful to our Lord and nourish our relationship with Him through prayer and bible study and fellowship with other believers and by obedience in action and thought and in witness.   Christ is a rewarder of all who seek and follow Him, both now and in eternity (Hebrews 11:6).

We don’t follow Christ to be rewarded, but His grace assures us that His blessings will be ours.  Our primary motivation to follow Christ is because of His love and sacrifice for us.  To focus more on pleasing Him and less on thinking about the reward or worse to deceive ourselves into thinking we work to earn our reward.

WE CAN NOT WORK HARD ENOUGH OR LONG ENOUGH TO EARN THE REWARD WE ALREADY ARE GIVEN AT SALVATION – THE GIFT OF FORGIVENESS.   ON TOP OF THAT, HE GIVES US ETERNAL LIFE, A NEW ETERNAL BODY, An ETERNAL HOME MORE WONDERFUL THAN WE CAN IMAGINE, AND FELLOWSHIP WITH HIM PERSONALLY AND WITH THE HOST OF ANGELS AND OUR ANCESTORS.   AND THAT IS WHAT WE KNOW, NOT THE REST HE IS   WORKING TO SURPRISE US WITH.

SO IF WE CAN’T EARN OUR REWARD NOR IMAGINE HOW WONDERFUL IT IS.  DO WE THEN TRUST HIM ENOUGH AND LOVE HIM ENOUGH TO FOCUS ON SERVICING AND LOVING AND WORSHIPPING HIM?   AMEN? AMEN!

“Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.” Augustine 

Published by donsdevotions

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Don McDaniel - Who am I? Hello everyone and welcome to my devotional journal blog. In order to get acquainted and help you get to know me a bit better before considering following my blog, let me give you some background. I am a 74-year-old male and a retired engineer. I worked for a major supplier of underground mining equipment for nearly 40 years before retiring in 2012. Arlene and I have been happily married since April 1978 and have two grown – married children, one granddaughter and 2 step grandsons. I joined the local United Methodist church at age 12 after accepting Christ as my Savior at age 10 during revival services in that same church in 1961, so I have been a “Born Again” Christian all my teen years and adult life. Christ has helped and guided me all that time. He guided me in choosing my wife and life’s career. My life journey has included regrets and failures, but God has picked me up and protected and spared me from life threatening consequences and dangers more times than I can recall or count. But many I do recall and encourage and motivate me to trust and follow Christ with more passion than ever. Christmas 2011 our daughter gave Arlene and I each a devotional journal. Journals were books with devotion for each day and space to give personal impressions and thoughts related to each devotion. Her desire was to have a lasting legacy she could refer back to and share with her children and grandchildren especially after we are gone. I was touched by that gesture. My parents and Arlene’s were devout Christians, so we would have greatly treasured having that from them, so we felt a sense of urgency to honor her request. I finished my journal first and returned it to our daughter the following Christmas. I’m glad I did it then because Parkinson’s has caused my hand writing to deteriorate since then. The exercise was such a blessing for me. Discipline of keeping journal helped me gain a deeper walk with Christ and greater discipline in honoring my time of prayer and devotion with Him each day. So, I decided to continue the practice but since I could not find a paper journal I liked, I decided to create my own. I had already been receiving electronic devotions by email every day from several sources, my favorite being “Turning Point” from Dr. David Jeremiah. What I decided to do was to include devotional scripture but add my own thoughts and comments only so there would be no issue of copyright infringement. Creating and maintaining journal by computer also addressed my deteriorating handwriting ability. I started an electronic devotion journal January 1, 2013 and have been faithful to that practice every day since. I prayed about method and level of distribution. My initial intent was to only share it with my two children by email, but quickly discovered others in my family, my church, and friends from work (both retired and still working) who knew me and wanted to be included in distribution when they learned what I was doing. I now distribute by email my daily journal at the beginning of each month to over 150 friends and relatives. God has richly blessed and encouraged me. I am concerned with the state of our church and nation, and world for that matter, believing we are living in the end times the prophets of old and Christ have talked about in scripture, so time is short. I desire to be true to my Savior and a witness to help others come to a saving knowledge of Him and equipped to share His Good News too. If my journal can encourage and help others, I believe God wants me to share it. I struggled, for a time at first, because I know many others keep similar journals but only for their own edification and do not want to share them because they are private. However, Christ has stirred my heart to share it as a witness tool. Our son and daughter have a long-time friend who grew up with them who we also befriended nearly 25 years ago. He had a lot of family problems, so would gravitate to our family as a refuge and eventually thought of us as his adopted parents and he as our adopted son. We lost contact with him for some time when he grew up and left home. He traveled around the U.S. and eventually ended up in Ukraine where he resided for next 10 years. He had to return to the US to renew his visa and took opportunity to recommend I begin a blog of my devotions and helped me set it up. He is also an active blogger and has been an email subscriber to my journal for several months, so he has been suggesting I expand my distribution by starting a blog to get broader exposure. After reflection and prayer, I concluded God was in this, so he is helping me set up my blog site. This brief autobiography is my first entry. He returned to Ukraine, then resided there until circumstanced made him decide to move back to US with his young son. This biography was my first post February 29, 2016 . I have published 600 posts from 2016-2023 automatically sent to all my Facebook friends, published on WordPress to be accessible to anyone curious or seeking a deeper walk with God. I decided to take a sebatical to prepare for a new chapter. In 2014 I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease which affects patient ability to walk, drive, do physical work, and eventually talk. By mid 2023 it became evident our home for last 42 years (previously owned by my parents for previous 44 years and by my mother's grandparents for 39 years before that) would eventually not meet my needs so we decided to sell it and move into 1st floor of a duplex we also owned that was the town school from 1855-1913. Likewise, the property was requiring more maintenance that I was no longer able to keep up with. 2023 involved selling our home and moving into apartment next door and then in early 2025 an opportunity to move closer to our daughter and granddaughter in Kentucky which was completed in May 2025. For a number of months I have been seeking direction seeking God's direction and timing to return to blogging as my journey with Parkinson's continues to unfold with God's guiding hand in mine. I hope and pray my devotions will continue to be a blessing for you. God certainly has become closer and more real to me since started this blog in 2016. I have spent time with Him studying scripture and praying and listening and writing this journal. I will continue seeking God’s help and will welcome your input to make this site as meaningful as I can and true to God, who is motivating me to create and maintain it. I will also welcome input in order to make format more meaningful going forward. Don & Arlene McDaniel In His Service, Email: mcdanieldonald769@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Don1951 If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 600+ blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present (https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/link-to-dons-devotional-journal-entries-2013/ ) You may also access my Facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily. My Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/ Many thanks to a pastor and dear brother in Christ in Nepal who set up the above Facebook page to help and encourage and give opportunity for more to explore and use my devotional blog materials.

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