I Will Be Your God, part 3

Your Reward

We all love rewards whether it is the skymiles we earn for using our credit card, the A we get on the test we studied so hard for, the free scoop of ice cream we receive after buying the previous nine, or a year-end bonus from our employer. In Genesis 15 God says, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” God declares to Abram and to us that he is our reward. Do we not tend to think of God as the giver of the rewards we want in life, but fail to see him as the reward itself, the greatest possible reward there could ever be?

About this promise of God to Abram, John Calvin wrote, “In calling himself his ‘reward,’ [God] teaches Abram to be satisfied with himself alone…since men, surrounded with various and innumerable desires of the flesh, are at times unstable, and are then too much addicted to the love of the present life…God declares that He alone is sufficient for the perfection of a happy life to the faithful…God is the highest and complete perfection of all good things… he not only pours upon us the abundance of his kindness, but offers himself to us that we might enjoy him…He who has God for his inheritance does not exult in fading joy; but as one already elevated toward heaven, enjoys the solid happiness of eternal life.”

The "solid happiness of eternal life" Calvin speaks of is ours now to the degree that we are satisfied in God himself as our great reward. That "solid happiness" can be hard to come by though. We live in a man-centered culture and we have a self-centered nature, and we are easily enticed by the innumerable things promising to reward us with happiness. All the while there stands Jesus, who has guaranteed the promise of Genesis 15:1 with his own blood at the cross. How will we respond? Here are a few questions to ponder:

What am I looking to for joy and satisfaction?

Am I satisfied in God, or am I constantly striving for something more, thinking that if only I could just have this thing or that, then I would be satisfied?

Is God himself the "end," or is he for you merely a "means" to all the "ends" you are really after in your life?