Repentance Series (6 of 9) The Rewards of Repentance

The Rewards of Repentance (6 of 9) God is a rewarder of those who seek Him. I do not want to make this post because I fear I will give the wrong idea of who God is, and why we serve Him. Nonetheless Jesus spoke much about reward, and we too must speak of it as well, especially concerning repentance. If you have not yet read the first 5 posts of this repentance series please do so before continuing on.Remember that repentance is for God, not for your reward, the purpose of this post is to speak of the wonderful rewards of repentance, not to convince you to repent for the rewards. In other words repent because God is worthy, not because of what you will receive. The greatest reward that anyone could receive is God Himself, and that should be the only sought after reward of repentance. It goes back to the question we asked before, ‘Why must we repent’, and the simple answer was to please God. This is the reward we desire: to hear God say ‘Well done my good and faithful servant.’ Will we receive bigger dwelling places and more luxury in glory if we live a repentant life? I suppose you could make that case fairly convincingly, but my hope is not that I dwell in a big mansion with many treasures but that the place I dwell in is in the very near vicinity of the throne. The reason heaven is heaven is because God the father dwells there with Jesus His Son. That is our reward. I must also speak of the earthly rewards of repentance. First let me make this very clear, biblical repentance is more likely to make you poor than rich. I do not care what Mr. Osteen tells you, or any of the other fools on TV may say, or even a Jabez prayer. These schemes all play on your selfishness, and all of Christendom seems obsessed with them. The earthy rewards of repentance are the blessings that result from a life turned away from sin: A clean conscience, communion with God, joy in the inner man, fruitful relationships, the warm burning for God that only the Spirit can bring, and purpose. Christ will drive the repentant person to purpose, and to have a purpose from God is certainly a reward. A ‘purpose driven life’ will not lead you to the Lord, but a Christ driven, spirit led, repentant life will certainly lead you to purpose. (I could easily get sidetracked here.) The rewards of repentance are so real, and bring so much joy, yet they are not the rewards the world desires. (I will leave it at that.) I recognize that these last couple of posts did not have scripture references in them. Feel free to click the e-mail link if you have any questions where I have derived my points from and I will point you to the scriptures that affirm the things I have been saying. I will comeback and append to the bottom of both of these posts list of the scriptures used to develop these posts later this evening (Lord willing).  (--below was added 9/23/2006--) Acts 3:19 Acts 11:18 Romans 2:4