The God Who Is Looking For Reasons To Reward You And Not To Punish You!

The greatest battle over your life is what you believe about God and what you believe God believes about you.

Satan knows that what you believe about God will either draw you closer to Him or push you further away from Him. So his primary job is to lie to you about who God really is and about who God thinks you really are.

But here’s the good news: God has given us a way to know the absolute truth about Him that will set you free from the lies of the devil. God’s written word!

The Bible is much more than a book of do’s and don’ts. The Bible is a declaration of who God says He really is and who God says you really are.

That is why the greatest investment you can make in your life today and everyday is spending time in the word of God and establishing the voice of God as the greatest voice in your life.

Hebrews 11:6 declares that there are two things we must believe about God… One, that He is… and two, that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

When you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you move from an adversarial relationship with God to a relationship of grace and peace and favor with God.

When you receive Christ in your life, God becomes your advocate and not your adversary!

Colossians 1:21-22 (NIV) declares:

“Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish AND FREE FROM ACCUSATION!”

Jesus came to take you from ultimate condemnation before God to ultimate confidence before God! 

Is God a punisher? Yes.

Is he your punisher as a believer in Jesus Christ? No.

God has done everything in His power so that not one person would have to experience His judgement and punishment.

Sadly many choose to willfully, reject the love and grace of God offered through Jesus Christ, to live a life of rebellion and independence from God’s love.

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. THERE IS NO JUDGEMENT AGAINST ANYONE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son.”
‭‭John‬ ‭3‬:‭16‬-‭18‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Paul further explains the two aspects of God’s nature to the Christians in Rome in his epistle:

“Notice how GOD IS BOTH KIND AND SEVERE. He is severe toward those who disobeyed, BUT KIND TO YOU if you continue to trust in his kindness. But if you stop trusting, you also will be cut off.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭11‬:‭22‬ ‭NLT‬‬

God is severe with those who willfully reject Him but God is a kind rewarder to those who receive Him.

While salvation is a gift, not a reward (Ephesians 2:8-9), there are numerous additional blessings God offers as rewards to believers. However, many miss out on these because they approach their relationship with God from a place of obligation, driven by fear of failure and punishment, rather than embracing their relationship with God as an opportunity for growth and reward.

Hebrews 11:6 lays down the condition for what I call God’s REWARD CHALLENGE: moving past the point of a casual, convenience based relationship with God into a sacrificial, over and above, sometimes inconvenient relationship with God and the opportunity to serve Him and others with an extra ingredient called diligence!

Your reward is just on the other side of convenience!

“But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that HE IS A REWARDER OF THOSE WHO DILIGENTLY SEEK HIM”
‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭11‬:‭6‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

There are many divine reward challenges in scripture including God’s challenge for His people to give 10% (or more) to Him:

“Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, AND TRY ME NOW IN THIS”, Says the Lord of hosts, AND SEE IF I WILL NOT OPEN FOR YOU THE WINDOWS OF HEAVEN AND POUR OUT FOR YOU SUCH BLESSING THAT THERE WILL NOT BE ROOM ENOUGH TO RECEIVE IT!” Malachi 3‬:‭10‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

The Bible is full of reward challenges for those who will stretch themselves past the point of convenience in giving, prayer, fasting, helping the poor, sharing Christ, perseverance, rendering good for evil, being faithful in little, humility, blessing Israel, meditating in God’s word, leaving your nation to preach the gospel, serving others, and so much more.

Here are a few New Testament scriptures on reward that will encourage you as you take your relationship with God and others to a new level of love and action as you step into God’s great reward challenge over your life and future!

• Matthew 5:12 – Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
• Matthew 5:46 – For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
• Matthew 6:1 – Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
• Matthew 6:2 – Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
• Matthew 6:5 – And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
• Matthew 6:16 – And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
• Matthew 6:18 – so that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
• Matthew 10:41 – The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.
• Matthew 10:42 – And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.
• Mark 9:41 – For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward.
• Luke 6:23 – Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.
• Luke 6:35 – But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
• 1 Corinthians 3:8 – He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor.
• 1 Corinthians 3:14 – If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.
• 1 Corinthians 9:17 – For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward, but if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship.
• 1 Corinthians 9:18 – What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.
• Colossians 2:18 – Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind,
• Colossians 3:24 – knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
• 1 Timothy 5:18 – For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.”
• Hebrews 10:35 – Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.
• Hebrews 11:6 – And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
• Hebrews 11:26 – He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.
• 2 John 1:8 – Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.

These are all the verses in the New Testament where “reward” or “rewarder” appears.