Many Christians feel that they are entitled to blessings and rewards from God because they’re Christians.  They focus more on what they’ll get from God than on what they’ll do for God.  They put the crown before the cross!

God does bless us now, and He will give us rewards and crowns one day, but we need to keep these in their proper perspective.

According to Dictionary.com, blessings are special favors, mercies or benefits given by someone to someone else under their authority. God gives blessings to His children here on earth through gifts that bring them joy and that enable them to continue in His ministry. And these are more than material gifts; they are His protection, His wisdom, His direction, His peace, and His abundant love that He pours upon those who love Him.

As well, according to Oxford Living Dictionary, rewards are things given in recognition of one’s service, effort, or achievement. So rewards come after something is accomplished—not in the process of it. And this something in God’s eyes is what comes at the end of all the accomplishments that we achieve during our lifetime; accomplishments that bring glory to God. And they are given to us in Heaven, not here on earth.

When we become a Christian, our thoughts should be less on the worldly things and more onto Godly things. Our heart should strive to know God and to do His will. Our desire should be to know Him, to love Him and to obey Him. And we will only know His will when we study the Bible. God inspired the authors of the Scriptures to write His truth, and when we study it, God’s Holy Spirit reveals this truth to us.

The book of Proverbs is filled with blessings—“blessed is the man who…”. But there’s always a condition to a blessing because God wants to show us clearly the two paths that lie before us. If we do this, that will happen. If we do that, then this will happen. These aren’t threats; they are warnings so we’ll stay on the right path.

God’s blessings come when we follow Jesus on the right path and do what He does, and we’ll know they’re from God because of the peace and joy that comes with them.  But when we follow the path of sin, God is no longer our focus and we no longer have God’s protection but rather, death, destruction, and separation from Him—and these are the “blessings” that the devil wants us to have.

When Jesus is our focus, our heart and mind are on Him. In turn, we resist the devil because we are not listening to him or being threatened by him; we are listening only to Jesus. And Jesus is greater than the devil because He defeated and overcame that enemy at the cross.

This world is on a fast-paced downhill ride heading for judgment, and many people we know and love have not yet received Christ in their hearts. If Jesus returns before they are saved, their eternity will be with the devil in hell. Is this really what we want for them?

Jesus said in Luke 9:23 that we should pick up our cross and follow Him. Our cross is His gospel! It’s not seeking a prosperous life here on earth. We need to pray for the lost, pray for those who are sick and in need, and pray for our leaders and our teachers so they will become part of God’s plan for salvation and not His judgment.

God will bless us along the way as we share His love for the lost. He will provide our needs, fill our heart with joy and make our life worth living. And when we get to Heaven, we will stand before Christ at the Judgment Seat, and He will smile as He opens His arms and welcomes us home. And the greatest reward we’ll ever receive is seeing our Lord glorified as we lay all the crowns we’ve earned while here on earth at Jesus’s feet!  Oh, what a day that will be!

• His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.—Matthew 25:21

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