Seeking God, Serving His Plan, and His Rewards

Fresh Manna
by Pastor Tim Burt

In Mark 9:41 (NIV), Jesus says some powerful words that should be mind-blowing and make you want to know more about them. He said, “I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.” Everything you do for God from a right motive and pure heart carries a reward that will be given to you in Heaven.

Because you’re a Christian and a Bible reader, I want you to think about different Bible characters that just happened to be wherever they were when God came along side of them. Abram (to become Abraham) was living in Haran when the Lord first spoke to him. Moses was delivered by the hand of God at birth from a genocide initiated by Pharaoh, and was then first talked to by God from a burning bush. Noah was a righteous man living in an evil and defiled world when God one day spoke to him, sharing His plans to renovate the earth and to ask him to build the ark.

You could go through character after character and you would see that God visited them and gave them the opportunity to follow and obey Him and do significant things by faith that would further God’s plans in the earth. These men and women of God were ordinary people who did not become significant or famous in anyone’s eyes until they obeyed God. But because they did obey Him, great things happened. There is a true greatness in life. Greatness is measured only by God and His standard, and is attributed to those He chooses as He alone is capable of judging! Without Him we are nothing.

One thing that all those that obeyed God and walked out His plan had in common was this; humble hearts knowing they were nothing in themselves! God paints a picture in His word revealing this truth. In a future time, we see Jesus on His throne surrounded by the 24 Old and New Testament saints that led in God’s plan. They had been given crowns as their reward for following and serving the plan of God. What they did with those crowns is a life lesson for all of us to pay attention to. They cast the crowns given to them at the feet of Jesus. Why? Because they knew that they deserved nothing. That without the Lord they would be nothing and that everything given them was a gift and the grace of God in their life. They knew that He and He alone was and is the enabler of all our good actions and blessing and the only one that deserves glory. And so, we see each of them casting their crowns and glory, placing them at His feet – the only deserving one!

Let this picture be painted in your mind as you read this slowly. Revelation 4:3-4 & 9-11 “The One sitting on the throne was as brilliant as gemstones—jasper and carnelian. And the glow of an emerald circled His throne like a rainbow. Twenty-four thrones surrounded him, and twenty-four elders sat on them. They were all clothed in white and had gold crowns on their heads… Whenever the living beings give glory and honor and thanks to the one sitting on the throne, the One who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down and worship the One who lives forever and ever. And they cast their crowns before the throne and say, “You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For You created everything, and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created.”

What made these men great and able to be used of God? It was their humble and hungry heart to know and serve God and His plan. Their love and hunger to know, love, and serve God gave them a spiritual perception and eyesight that the rest of the world does not have. It causes you to see God in the details of your life in a way that others can’t. It causes your faith to become stronger than most because you constantly see God working in your life. And no matter what good comes to you, you know and acknowledge that it is from and because of Him. People with this kind of heart and perception are daily casting their crown at His feet. 1 Chronicles 29:14 (NLT) says, “But who am I, and who are my people, that we could give anything to you? Everything we have has come from you, and we give you only what you first gave us!”

Desiring to know and seeking daily, the heart, will, and purpose of the author of every good thing in your life is the purest form of humility there is. More than any other quality that we could ever develop, nothing will affect our heart, and shape our life more than the desire to know, love, and serve the plan of God in our lives!

People often think of the notable things God eventually used these people in. But none of them started at that place. They simple hungered to know God and prayed to know Him and be used of Him in any way at all. Each had different spiritual gifts and talents just as we do. We don’t read about their humble beginnings, but they all had them. God wants you to seek Him and pray that He use you with the gifts and talents He’s put in you! It’s not scary! It’s glorious at every stage. And it’s humbling. And it’s the reason that when you are before Him in Heaven one day, you’ll also want to defer all glory to Him also!

Isaiah 6:8 (NIV) “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

In His love,
Pastor Tim Burt

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