My exceedingly great Reward…
“Sacrifice always brings reward. If it’s done with a pure heart.” – Joyce Meyer
“As we give we find that sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven. And in the end, we learn it was no sacrifice at all.” – Spencer W. Kimball
Living for Christ, overcoming through the word of our testimony, the blood of the Lamb, not loving our lives even unto death (Rev.12:11)….this journey will sometimes cost us something. Sometimes it’s a small sacrifice and sometimes it will be bigger things that we need to get rid of or give to God.
Let’s be honest with each other … The Bible speaks of life in abundance, forgiveness, healing, favour, prosperity, joy, calling and plans for our lives but… it also speaks of perseverance, longsuffering, patience, sacrifice, valley of shadow of death, thousands falling at our side, being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not yet see….Gal.5:17 says the flesh craves what is contrary to the Spirit and we find ourselves in the midst of a constant war as they are in conflict with each other.
A year ago God asked me to lay down something that was dear to me. To fully surrender and give it to Him. He told 
me to read the story again of Abraham having to offer up Isaac and as I read it, He asked me why He had to call out to Abraham twice just as he was lifting the knife about to kill his son. I did not know the answer and He said, “because Abraham had already made up his mind to be obedient. He was REALLY going to do it.” Then God challenged me “How motivated are you REALLY to give Me that thing which is so dear to you? Or are you raising your knife to perform the offering but still keeping an eye out for a ram to save the day? Will you be obedient to My leading no matter what it costs you? Not matter what “the people say”. Doing what I told you because I am enough for you? Not loving your own life…”
I now understand why I had to sacrifice this thing that was so dear to me, and since, He has restored it to me, this time just so much better. He saw the bigger picture which I could not yet see. And I needed to learn to trust Him. I learnt that my motivation should not be what I will get in return, instead, He wanted it to be that He is enough. FULL STOP. God said and I will do. It doesn’t matter what the outcome is and my eye is not on what I can gain from this, but rather – He is my Reward. In Genesis 15 God told Abraham “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”
Matt. 9 tells us that God desires mercy and not sacrifice. But often obedience to His voice will require us to sacrifice something. Matt.10:38-39 “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.”
Sometimes we will all be faced with situations where we will need to follow obediently to His leading and swim upstream, give something dear to us, do what is right or godly – even when it will cost us dearly. Why will we do it then? Except for all the blessings that follow obedience (see Deut.28:1-14) we do it because He knows best for our lives, because we are part of a BIG plan and because He is enough. He should be our motivation in everything we do. We do it all for Him. For His pleasure, for His glory. Because we love Him, this God who loved us so much that He gave up His 
own Sons life, that He gave up His own life. Because He did not love His own life even unto death… This is covenant after all (as we saw in a previous post) – all of me in return for all of Him. This life in abundance is one that will sometimes cost us something – but then again that makes it so much more valuable and precious. It cost Jesus His everything, do you now have a better idea of how much He values your relationship with Him? How much He values you!
“To Abraham, Isaac had died when God spoke, because he decided then to obey God. Thus he received him back “raised” from the dead on the 3rd day, just like Jesus.!” – Unknown Author