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A Just Reward

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Over time, I’ve known Christians who at times, while sure of their faith and salvation, wonder what’s the point of serving God in this world?  Salvation comes through faith, not works, right?  What else is there to gain by Christian service, they ask?  Therefore, it becomes harder to serve.

Others might be diligently serving God, yet don’t see any results from their work.  In their eyes, it may not look like the ones they serve are benefitting.  It may not look like anyone is noticing their service and cares about it.  Maybe their motivation is getting harder to come by.

In situations like these, it helps to be reminded of the justice of God… Justice?  What does that have to do with it?  Let me explain.  Too often we think of God’s justice only in the sense that He cannot help but punish every evil act.  However, the epistle to the Hebrews reminds us that there is another side to God’s justice:

“For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.” – Hebrews 6:10

This verse tells us that it would be an injustice for God to not reward us for the good that we do.  Through the sacrifice of Christ, God no longer judges us for our sins, but nothing has happened to separate us from the other side of God’s justice!  While not punishing evil would be unjust, so would not rewarding good.

The verse also tells us that God doesn’t “overlook” anything that we do in love, “in serving the saints.”  While we may not see the fruit God is growing through us, or feel we are contributing, or receive recognition for our actions, God knows about it and is not unjust.  While He removes our sin from us “as far as the east is from the west,” (Psalm 103:12) He remembers every act of love we do, as small as sharing a cup of water with a thirsty child (Matthew 10:42).

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

The Bible isn’t clear about how each person will be rewarded differently in heaven, but it is clear that for everyone heaven will be amazing and wonderful beyond anything we could imagine, and also clear that not everyone will get the same level of reward.  See, for example, the parable of the talents in Matthew 25.

So, what’s the point of serving God in this world if it doesn’t affect our salvation, and if we aren’t seeing any current results?  Why bother?  The point is first, that it’s the right thing to do, but second, that God is just and will reward us in eternity.

As Jesus said in Matthew 6:19-21, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Our service on this earth for God is like an investment in the treasures of heaven, and these investments made in love are safer than any investments you can make in this world because the reward is based on God’s character, and God is just.

“For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.”

God Loves His Unfaithful People

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The story of the prophet Hosea can be a controversial subject.  In only the second verse of the book, we learn that: “When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, ‘Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom’” (Hosea 1:2a).

A common interpretation of the “wife of whoredom” is “prostitute,” but it doesn’t necessarily mean that.  However, it certainly means a wife who is not faithful to her husband.  An adulteress, as Hosea’s wife Gomer is described in Hosea 3:1.  Gomer has 3 children in the story, and the last 2 may have been illegitimate.

Is it scandalous, is it even believable, that God would command His own prophet Hosea to marry this way?  The God who demands that we be holy.  Could He ask one of His spokespeople to “become one flesh” with a woman like this?  What kind of lesson can we take from this?

It only really makes sense when you realize why God did it.  The full verse of Hosea 1:2 says, “When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, ‘Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.’”

Photo by Worshae on Unsplash

Because of the word “for,” there’s a connection between the unfaithful wife and the people of the land: God’s people Israel.  It’s as if God commanded this marriage because Israel was unfaithful.  God had something to say about that.  While Hosea’s marriage was real, it was also a symbol meant to give a message: that, like Hosea marrying Gomer, God is willing to love unfaithful people.  After all, there is no other kind of person.  We all fit the description, yet He is willing to love us so much that the church is called the bride of Christ, like Gomer was the bride of Hosea.

While some think God’s command to Hosea is too scandalous to have really happened, it is no more scandalous than God choosing sinners to be His bride in Christ, which He did.  From the beginning of time God knew that His people would be unfaithful to Him, yet He designed and implemented a plan to bring those same people back into a right, intimate relationship with Him.  This plan meant taking on human flesh, being abused, and dying horribly for His people, but then being raised from the dead and taken back up into heaven.  This was the cost of restoring sinners to fellowship with their Maker who loves them.  And He thought it was worth it.

So, what is the lesson of God’s command to Hosea?  That there is no limit to who or how God can love.  Nobody deserves God’s love because all are unfaithful, but in spite of that, God loves His unfaithful people.  Why?  Because in His love He chooses to.

Praise God that He does!

Amen.

“The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.” – Revelation 22:17

Daily Readings for August 24 – 30

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Fellow travelers:

For those looking for a Bible reading plan, each week I post 2 chapters to read per day as a main reading plan, and for anyone who wants to read the whole Bible in 2026, I’ll post the extra chapters to read that week.  The main readings will include nearly all of the New Testament, plus Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Prophets, and a few other Old Testament books.

Reading 3 chapters a day on weekdays and 4 on weekends almost exactly covers the 1,189 chapters of the Bible, so the “extra” readings will be about 9 chapters per week.  These readings will cover the Pentateuch, the OT histories, a few other OT books, plus Jude and Revelation from the NT.

Regardless, I hope this schedule encourages others to read and study their Bible more, whatever parts they decide to read.  Follow along (or not) any way you choose!

2 chapter a day plan:
Monday, August 24: Isaiah 49 – 50
Tuesday, August 25: Isaiah 51 – 52
Wednesday, August 26: Isaiah 53 – 54
Thursday, August 27: Isaiah 55 – 56
Friday, August 28: Isaiah 57 – 58
Saturday, August 29: Isaiah 59 – 60
Sunday, August 30: Isaiah 61 – 62

Extra chapters for those reading the whole Bible in 2026:
1 Kings 17 – 22, 2 Kings 1

O Ye of Little Faith

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Does it sometimes feel like our faith is useless?  Like it’s not big enough to be effective?  To enable us to trust God?  Also, do we often feel like we should be perfect, but we’re not?  Like sin continues to conquer some areas of our lives, regardless of our best efforts?  In Mark 4, Jesus tells two parables that can reassure us that we shouldn’t lose heart when we feel this way.

The first parable is about how the kingdom of God grows from small, scattered seeds to a full and bountiful harvest.  This short parable has a lot to say, and makes (among others) these two points, just in verse 28: “The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.”  Jesus says that from the seed, “the earth produces by itself.”  The phrase “by itself” in the original Greek is automatos, where we get the English word automatic.  Like we don’t know how literal seeds grow, we also don’t know how the seed of the kingdom of God grows, but Jesus tells us that it grows automatically, meaning not by our own effort.  In the life of a believer, faith and obedience to the kingdom of God will grow because God causes it to grow.  When we feel our faith has failed, God can and will use that failure to grow our faith more than we could imagine.

The second point is made by the phrase “first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.”  In Jesus’ day, many Jews expected the Messiah to come and immediately implement His kingdom, overthrowing Rome and restoring Israel to its glory days under King David, but better.  However, the phrase “first the blade…” points out that the kingdom of God comes slowly and in stages.  It first comes to individual believers, then spreads to others, then “when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come”(verse 29).

Jesus was referring to the kingdom as a whole, but I believe it also refers to the life and growth of each believer’s faith.  First, our faith is only enough to restore our relationship to God and He grants us salvation by His mercy and grace.  Over time, our faith grows into a “blade,” then an “ear” in the different areas of our lives.  In some ways we may be faithful, but in others we may continue to struggle, even for very long periods of time.  But someday, when “the harvest has come,” He will bring us home and perfect our faith forever in every area of our lives.  When the time comes, the kingdom will come suddenly and completely, but until then it grows slowly, both in aggregate and in each individual.

The second parable is the parable of the mustard seed, one of the smallest seeds.  “When sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants.”  Again, Jesus is speaking most directly about the entire kingdom of God, but the truth is also lived out in the life of each of us.  Sometimes our faith seems as small as a mustard seed, but that faith is destined to be perfect and complete.  As pointed out in the first parable, it’s not our own effort that causes our faith to grow, but the power of God that causes it to grow “automatically.”  Everyone’s faith seems small at first and also may seem small at different times and in different ways, but like the mustard seed, it’s not the size of our faith in the beginning or now that really matters, it’s what that seed is destined to grow up to be that’s important.  We might not even notice our faith at some times because it seems so small, but the size of our faith is not what matters, it’s the power of the One we have faith in.

So, does your faith seem useless and small today?  Does it seem like you can’t trust God enough to follow Him in every area of your life, or to overcome some habitual sin (or sins)?  Remember that faith as small as the smallest seed, the mustard seed, will grow so that it overcomes all of our failures.  God will cause it to grow, in ways that seem “automatic” to us.  If He has given us any faith at all, He will see the growth of that faith through to the end.  As Paul wrote in Phillipians 1:6, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Amen.

Fighting Our Passions

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The Christian life is hard.  From a worldly point of view the Christian life is unnatural, and when given a choice, the right one is often the tough one.  As long as we live on this earth, we struggle to please God even when we have already been saved by Jesus through faith.  In 1 Peter 2:11, the apostle wrote about our difficulties:

“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.”

There are several important truths in this one verse, but the first is that we can’t ignore “the passions of the flesh” or pretend they don’t exist.  The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 7:18-19, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.”  In the surrounding verses, Paul separates the spiritual, redeemed part of us from the flesh, or the “sin that dwells within me.”[1]  The sinful flesh wants what it wants and isn’t concerned about what God thinks of it.  Our passions do not have our eternal soul’s destiny in mind, only the near-term reward.  Following the “passions of the flesh” is like saying this world is just fine rather than knowing it is fallen and needs redemption, yet even Christians do it anyway.

Photo by Антон Дмитриев on Unsplash

3 other parts of the verse are important, and I’ll take them in reverse order.  Peter wrote that these passions “wage war against your soul.”  This means that defeating them won’t be easy; and that the enemy must be taken seriously.  We are soldiers in this war against the flesh and defeat is harmful to our souls.  Once we are redeemed, sin can’t take away our salvation, but it can make our lives miserable, hobble our witness, and even affect our rewards in heaven.[2]  We are all susceptible to different sins, and none of us are immune from any of them.  We must “wage war” against what is at war against our souls.  This is no picnic.

However, Peter encourages us in the other 2 parts of the verse.

First, Peter reminds us that we are “sojourners and exiles.”  We live here, but don’t belong here.  Our time in this world is temporary, and we are just passing through.  People say about our worldly goods that “you can’t take it with you” but what we also won’t take with us are the harmful “passions of the flesh.”  While they are natural to our earthly bodies, they will not be natural to our glorified bodies.  If we grow weary of fighting this war, it helps us to know that the war is temporary.  God will see us through it in His time and help us each step along the way.[3]  We don’t need to give in.

Also, Peter says at the beginning of the verse that we are “Beloved.”  God loves us, and He doesn’t stop loving us because we regularly fail against “the passions of the flesh.”  We remain His “Beloved” even when we sin, because He has chosen to love us, knowing everything about us, past, present and future.  Even after repeated sin, He will not turn away from us.  As Jesus said in John 6:44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.”  He will always call us back and in the end, He will raise us up.

So, in our battles with “the flesh,” we must remember who we are.  We are beloved by God, we are not of this world, and we are soldiers in a serious battle.  Here, we will fight hard and experience repeated failure, but in eternity we will not fail at all.  We will perfectly reflect the character of Christ.

But in the meantime:

“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.”

[1] Romans 8:20
[2] 1 Corinthians 3:15, also the “Parable of the talents” in Matthew 25:14-30.
[3] 1 Corinthians 10:13