It Pays to Serve Jesus

“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.’ (Mark 10:29 & 30 NIV 2010)

Many times men and women of God go through a season in their life when it looks as if they have served God in vain and laboured for nothing. The prophet Isaiah certainly felt like this in Isaiah 49:4(NIV); ‘But I said, “I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing at all’.

The Apostle Paul was someone who definitely could have related to the sentiments expressed by the prophet. At the tail end of his ministry, after years of faithful service of pouring his all out for Christ he was in prison writing one of his last letters  – 2 Timothy. Was this what one gets from faithfully serving God? Here he was ‘languishing in a cold Roman dungeon, chained like a common criminal’ and waiting to die. Does this fit into our popular notion of a successful ministry? Was God unfaithful to Paul? Does it pay to serve Jesus?

In Genesis 24:1(NIV) the Bible says: ‘Abraham was now old and well advanced in years, and the LORD had blessed him in every way’. Remember Abraham’s experience, which was similar to that of  Paul in that he had left everything to serve God’s purpose for his life. He had ‘put all his eggs in one basket’. He had gone through troubles and had faced contradictions but at the end of his life the Bible says ‘the LORD had blessed him in every way’.  Isn’t that always true with God? That he blesses those who walk with him? That he doesn’t subtract but adds? That at the end of it all, though there may have been many troubles, the righteous will look back and testify that in every way God has been faithful. He had not only given Abraham the son he had promised him, he had also kept him throughout his sojourn in a strange land. He had crowned him with honour and surrounded him with peace. God turns our trials into gold. This is not a cliché but truth: God is good!

Now did God bless Abraham more than Paul? We would be quick to think it was so if we did  not understand that God’s blessing in a man’s life goes beyond how much he is able to physically show for it in this life. Did Paul feel he had laboured in vain? Listen to Paul ‘That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day’ (2 Timothy 1:12 NIV 2010). Listen to me: there is not only ‘today’ (this present life) there is also ‘that day’ coming. God is faithful. He blesses those who serve him. God never subtracts, he adds. He never wastes a life, he redeems it.

The servant of God will on that day look back and see that God has done what he promised to do and even more than what he (the servant) had imagined. By the time Abraham’s eyes were closing in death, he had not seen the fullness of that word ‘To your offspring I will give this land’, as they still dwelt in tents as pilgrims in the land of promise. But he was confident that God would do it. Like Paul, he too must have said, ‘I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day’. For him there was no going back to the land of his fathers. He did have all his eggs in one basket. He knew he could count on God.

When we are faced with the ‘Isaiah syndrome’ we must remember that God never calls us to seek him in vain. When we begin to think that it is unprofitable to follow him, please remember that God is faithful and can be trusted. As Paul looked at his end approaching, he said:

‘For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day’ – 2 Timothy 4:6-8

He looked ahead to ‘that day’. He looked ahead to a crown. He knew that he had fought a good fight – given his assignment his all and done it by keeping the faith (relying on grace and growing into Christ). Even here on earth, he could hear his Master’s well done and now he eagerly looked forward to seeing the righteous Judge face to face on ‘that day’ and to hearing him say ‘Well done good and faithful servant’. What a glorious day awaits those who serve Christ!

Let us not be misled by the glittering lights around us concerning the true meaning of success. Success is having God’s ‘well done’. It is not measured by the growth of your ministry or your position in society or how many things you have accumulated. Here is what is important: Are you where God has stationed you at this season of your life? Are you giving your all to do what he has called you to do? Are you relying on him and not on your own strength or wisdom? And are you daily growing into his likeness? Then rejoice, for it pays to serve Jesus!