Awards night is really near!

No doubt 2022 was another year of you trying your best. But it can feel like your best was not good enough. It didn’t produce the results you were looking for. You did good work and there is no doubt about it. However there isn’t much to show for your labour. Worse still there were times when it looked like no one even recognised what you did.

• These good things need to continue simply because these things are good. Quick rewards are not always the sign of value.

Maybe 2022 was a year you would rather forget. I know many who have been in a storm this year. Grief over what has been lost; fear over what may be; pain from walking the road of suffering; we know many who have remained the same loving person despite the battle they are going through. They have faced adversity with tears in their eyes and a smile on their face.

• Achievement is not always measured by attainment but by the ability to walk through unknown territory. The best rewards are sometimes for being and not doing.

These two life-lessons are given because of what we will read next.

“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. (Revelation 22 v 12-13)

In the context of ‘get ready!’ and an amazing ‘I am’ statement of Christ of which John personally knows several more! If you needed a proof-text that Jesus is God then here it is (1:8 and 21:6 the Alpha and Omega was applied to God and here it is Jesus saying it!)

In the context of saying that Jesus is the beginning, the middle and the end of your life. That when someone gives their life to Jesus then He is their story. There is never a moment when Jesus opts out of what is happening to your life, whether as a Pastor or Christian in one of the churches in Western Turkey or imprisoned on an island of Patmos.

In that context Jesus says “My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.”

The word he uses is Misthos and it means reward and recompense.

• Keep doing the good, Jesus is coming and His misthos/reward will be given to you.
• Doing is perfected in the being. Keep being the good even in the place of difficulty for His misthos/recompense will be given to you.