“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” Luke 16:13

There are two types of people in the world. There are those whose activities are designed to generate a reward in this lifetime. And there are those who live to serve God, gaining the greatest eternal reward.

Not every Christian demonstrates the latter. How can we judge whether we are living for eternity versus the world? There are many key indicators, here are just a few:

  • Those living for God are givers. They make their time and resources available to be channeled for Kingdom purposes. They love God first and everyone else as themselves.  They realize their sowing will ultimately be rewarded at the Judgment Seat of Christ where what they have done on earth will be judged and rewarded by God (2 Corinthians 5:10).
  • God centered Christians demonstrate a life with an abundance of obedience-based decisions. They don’t make decisions based on their own needs.  They realize a decision based on obedience alone may not result in an earthly benefit.  Jesus was obedient to the cross, but the immediate outcome was His own humiliation, horrific suffering and death.

Future reward situations show up in daily life in a number of ways. Perhaps a person has wronged you and God calls you to forgive and bless that person without expectation of their response. Perhaps God calls you to sow money into a ministry or another person’s life without expectation of return from them.  Perhaps you are called to serve another person without expectation of any earthly reward. Perhaps it is demonstrating the image of Christ at work, even when it doesn’t benefit you or your career. The situations we might encounter are unlimited.

A good axiom is “Where your head is so is your heart.”  If we surround ourselves with godly people, regularly study the word, pray continuously our heart is more likely to be on heavenly things, not earthly things.  If we spend our time chasing after the things of this world, our heart will be with the world, not the Lord.

This is not a recipe for a dreary life, just the opposite!  In Luke 11:28 Jesus said “blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.”  God blesses those who bless Him.  He will cover all our needs and more.  He knows just what we need to meet our needs and keep us humble.  God loves us tremendously and desires our obedience and focus on Him. 

Our time here is short.  We are but a vapor, with strength we may live 80 years.  Eternity is forever.  It’s hard to imagine.  Not thousands of years, or millions of years, or even billions of years.  Stay the course, run the race, focus on giving all you do to the Glory of God.  Give yourself for eternity, not for our short time here.