Reward for Love?
24043 QGA -
Matthew 05:46-47 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
Read the context: Matthew 43-48
Ponder:
? How does our desire for "reward" influence how we love?
? How much like non-believers do I "greet" (love) people?
? What "reward" does God want me to have from the way I love?
jne: There are lots of things that people who call themselves followers of Jesus do just like the world around them does. We tend to enjoy the same entertainments, the same life style, the same material luxuries, the same attitudes etc. And consequently we reap the same self-centered and most often eternally insignificant rewards.
In this "Sermon on the Mount" Jesus arrests (or should arrest us if we truly ponder what He is saying) our attention by challenging the way we love people with the same self-interest the non-believing world does. If you are like me, we prefer to love the people who are easy to love; the people who are like us; the people who benefit ourselves the most.
In doing so we miss out on not only sharing Jesus LIFE with those who need it, but also on the eternally present reward of "being sons of our Father Who is in Heaven. It is also important to note that the rewards we get from God are not earned but are gifts from the God Who graciously sees that none of us ever love this way on our own.
Matthew 05:46-47 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
Read the context: Matthew 43-48
Ponder:
? How does our desire for "reward" influence how we love?
? How much like non-believers do I "greet" (love) people?
? What "reward" does God want me to have from the way I love?
jne: There are lots of things that people who call themselves followers of Jesus do just like the world around them does. We tend to enjoy the same entertainments, the same life style, the same material luxuries, the same attitudes etc. And consequently we reap the same self-centered and most often eternally insignificant rewards.
In this "Sermon on the Mount" Jesus arrests (or should arrest us if we truly ponder what He is saying) our attention by challenging the way we love people with the same self-interest the non-believing world does. If you are like me, we prefer to love the people who are easy to love; the people who are like us; the people who benefit ourselves the most.
In doing so we miss out on not only sharing Jesus LIFE with those who need it, but also on the eternally present reward of "being sons of our Father Who is in Heaven. It is also important to note that the rewards we get from God are not earned but are gifts from the God Who graciously sees that none of us ever love this way on our own.