Teach for reward

Do you serve God for reward?

This is the question the devil asked God in Job 1.9, “Does Job fear God for nothing?”

What is the assumption behind the question? What is the question behind the question? What is the devil thinking?

The assumption is that if Job did not fear God for nothing—if he feared God for what he could get out of it—well, that is not very noble. Job is just being selfish. And that is the question, “Is Job really all that commendable if he fears God for what he gets out of it?”

This is what religious people expect. We expect that is it is good to do for others but not to do for you. If you work for your own benefit, we expect there won’t be any reward for that.

This is what Immanuel Kant taught. He believed that an action is moral only in that I have no desire to perform it. If I derive some benefit from it, I am just being selfish. If I serve because I am rewarded for service, the service is not a moral act. Piper puts it this way: “Kant loves a disinterested giver. God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7). Disinterested performance of duty displeases God. He wills that we delight in doing good and that we do it with the confidence that our obedience secures and increases our joy in God.”[1]

There are a lot of things unexpected about Jesus’ teaching. This is among the most unexpected: Jesus taught for reward. Jesus appealed to our benefit. He asked us to deny ourselves so that we could have Christ; so that our life could be saved:

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.
Matthew 16:24-27 (NIV)

Note that he didn’t ask us to deny ourselves and that is that. He didn’t ask us to lay down our lives just because. He said that this is the way to really have life. Note the appeal to reward in the last verse above: “he will reward each person according to what he has done.”