When it comes to heavenly rewards too many of us fall silent in our teaching. If we do teach about rewards it will probably be limited to the reward of eternal life. To be very honest, we enjoy teaching about salvation and about God’s blessings! It is another kettle of fish, however, when it comes to teaching about our standing before the Lord and listening to Him judge what we have done here on earth. It is hard to sit down and write a sermon or Sunday school lesson about varying degrees of heavenly rewards, which are based on our earthly obedience and service to Jesus. It is made difficult because we know that people will be uncomfortable hearing that their heavenly rewards are going to be a function of their earthly Christian service. Yet, anyone who has read 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 knows the truth; still, we allow ourselves to be influenced by itching ears; and we fall short in teaching the complete picture about heavenly rewards.
Let us be warned; the people’s ignorance of scripture will never justify them in the judgment. And, our failing to follow God’s will it is not going to stand well for us either. In his letter to the Ephesians Paul writes: “Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.” Paul also told Timothy that all scripture is inspired of God, and thus all scripture is profitable for a Christian to know and to apply in their lives. Brothers and sisters, we are walking on very shaky ground when we do not give serious attention to everything that is mentioned in God's word. After all, God would not have inspired the writing of a message if He did not intend for us to apply that message in our lives. Yes, it is pleasant to preach a warm & fuzzy message or teach about the wondrous love of Jesus; but God wants us to tell the people the rest of the story. Remember, God's word never returns to Him without accomplishing His purpose. In obedience, we follow the word of God: in ignorance, we may sometimes ignore the word of God; in times of stubbornness, we may even resist the word of God; but, we must never willingly alter it or think that we can discard it.
It is our solemn duty to know and to teach the rest of the rewards story. After all, the Bible does clearly say that there will be varying degrees of reward in heaven. Jesus also clearly taught that we will be given varying levels of responsibility and authority in heaven. Varying degrees of reward in heaven should not surprise us. Just look at the Church. Are there not varying degrees of gifts and responsibilities here on earth? Does everyone sing alike? Does everyone have the same administrative capability? Are all equally skilled as teachers? The answer is no! Christianity is a theocracy not socialism! We are all unique individual souls locked into a mortal frame. We all are personally responsible for serving God. Thus, we will all be individually judged and individually rewarded for our service. People need to know that “a little cabin in the corner of glory land’ may be a humble attitude but it is not an accurate picture of the hereafter.
When we took Jesus as our Lord and Master, God put the Holy Spirit within us and He gave each of us certain gifts: as He saw fit. These were not gifts for our own personal earthly benefit or glorification; these gifts were to empower us to serve Jesus and bring glory to God. We all have gifts and we all are free to use them or to ignore them; but we cannot deny that we have them. When we get to heaven God will judge how well we used the gifts he gave us and reward each one of us accordingly.
We are saved by the grace of God; we serve Jesus because we love Him; and God will reward our individual service because He personally knows each one of us and He personally loves each one of us.