Reward

I have this idea in my head about who Jesus is. Admittedly, it changes quite a lot, but that doesn't keep me from creating elaborate images of who I think He is. Of course the more elaborate the image that I create, the more crushed I am when the house of cards that held this elaborate image comes crashing down. I am in pretty good company, however.

I mean if you read the gospels they are filled with instances when Jesus took great delight in blowing down the house of cards that the disciples were building about who He, Jesus, is. It happened when the rich young ruler came along, and it happened when a few children decided that they wanted to see Jesus. In each case the disciples were left wondering, "What in the world is this guy about."

In one particular story this idea becomes painfully apparent. The story I am talking about is the story of the workers in the vineyard. You see this guy needs to get all of his grapes harvested, so he hires a few guys to work for a day. He promises them a certain wage and they agree. Apparently the master of the vineyard is concerned that they will not get done in time, so he hires a few more workers a couple hours later. A few hours after that the master hires some more people, and a couple of hours after that he does it again. Curious hiring practices in my opinion.

Well, the time comes to pay up and the master of the vineyard begins with the workers that have been there the shortest amount of time. He gives them the amount that was promised to the workers that started in the wee hours of the morning. Of course they, the workers that have been there since dawn, think that this is going to be their lucky day. I am sure they were already counting their chickens before the sun goes down... or someting like that.

Instead of paying the workers a premium, he merely fulfills his contract. He pays them what they agreed to. Of course they cry, "Foul! It is not fair."

"But you agreed, didn't you?"

Recently I was involved in a discussion about this story. One comment I heard was sure, all of us who trust in Jesus are saved whether we believe in our youth or in our deathbed, but our reward in heaven, surely our reward in heaven is determined by our faithfulness here on earth. Another said that even Jesus said to store up for yourselves treasure in heaven. This must be what he is talking about.

To all of this I profoundly and thoroughly disagreed. You see, when Jesus talked about storing up for yourself treasure in heaven he also talked a great deal about what treasure is. He talked about the Pearl of Great Price, and the Treasure on Trespassed Land. In each of these the treasure is worth more than anything else the seeker has ever had or hoped for. Treasure is what you give everything for. Treasure is what your heart longs for.

When asked what the reward is that Jesus gives to all those who follow him from youth or from the deathbed someone said, "eternal life." I said that is not good enough for me. Boy did that get me in trouble. I said that if we believe in the resurrection of souls, we believe in eternal life whether we like it or not. Even hell is eternal. No, I think that for eternal life to be special enough to be a reward there must be something else to it. Prolonged eternal existence with no purpose seems incredibly boring to me, but then again I have been diagnose with Adult ADD.

Anyway, whatever this something else is, it has to be a reward, and it has to be undiminished by time. I mean that this reward must be something that we can enter into here in the present because Jesus spent a lot of time talking about living in the kingdom now. After I thought about all of this, there was only one thing that met all of these conditions; Jesus.

This is the part that scares me. It seems that for the longest time I was convinced that heaven was going to be a place where I got to do what I wanted. I thought that if I deprived myself of enough stuff here, then Jesus would reward me with better stuff later. Basically, heaven was just a really cool, FDIC, behavioral bank account. If that is true then of course the guys who get started early are going to be irritated. I mean, why give up booze, movies, women, parties and coffee if I can renounce it all on my deathbed and get heaven too?

We believe this more than we want to admit. Seriously, did any of you think, "but Trent, what if we don't get a deathbed experience? What if we hit a tree at 80 miles an hour? If that happens then we will miss out on all the stuff in heaven." You see what I mean?

What if heaven isn't about fishing, or hiking, or doing whatever we want. What if heaven is about fulfilling our original created purpose of having fellowship with our maker? What if the reward of heaven is Jesus? Would that mean that if I am nice I get more Jesus than the guy that sticks the kick me sign on the nerd's back? What if we run out of Jesus? If that happens I want to make sure that I get mine first.

All of that is really silly. I experience Jesus now. There isn't more later. If I regret not being able to booze it up and drink too much coffee, then my heart isn't set on Jesus. He isn't my reward, and heaven won't be any fun.

Maybe, just maybe we need to be sad that the person that makes the deathbed decision had to wait so long to get his reward. Maybe the reward in heaven is the same for all. Maybe.