Great Reward

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
—Matthew 5:11-12

Our Lord Jesus gave The Sermon on the Mount to lay out for us the behavior of a believer who is living in the already/not yet kingdom of our Lord. His kingdom began at His incarnation, but will not be consummated until His second coming. Much like a presidential election—a president is elected in November, but doesn’t take office until January. His victory is decided in November, but the full realization of his ruling authority does not take place until January.

Our Lord lays out for us the quality or state of being we possess when we know Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We are “blessed” when we are reviled and persecuted, because the insults are not true and the slander we receive has no basis. We become targets of those who utter such slander only because of our relationship and standing before God. The truth of God is an affront to the self-sufficient unbeliever who rejects the fact that he stands in condemnation before God. He wishes to extinguish any trace of conviction in the world around him so as to somehow liberate himself from God’s decree of condemnation for those who sin against Him. We are reviled because of our righteous behavior in Christ. The world insults us because it insulted Him (John 15:20).

But how do we consider ourselves “blessed” when we are maligned by family, neglected by friends, ridiculed by co-workers, and considered “foolish” by professors or peers? We rejoice! Why? As the Apostle Peter said,  

“If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you”—1 Peter 4:14. 

God’s Spirit rests on us and we experience His presence in new and profound ways. The pain that we feel from others, like pressure on coal, brings out diamonds for His glory. We become diamonds, brilliantly shimmering in the light of His presence, contrasted against the darkness all around us, radiating His matchless grace in a vivid display of His all-surpassing worth. The insults that we endure for Christ cause us to experience His presence more closely, know His love more personally, and experience the love that He has for others who continually turn a deaf ear to His call. We realize that we too were once unlovely, objects of wrath, and we stand amazed that we have come to know Him, or to be known by Him, in such a way that the sacrifice of His cross is seen in greater glory.

It’s one thing to see a picture of a sunset in a photo, but it’s a far different thing to experience it, to see the vast beams of light scattered across the horizon, vast oranges, reds, and yellows. When we suffer for the sake of Christ, we experience the joy of knowing what He suffered as He was rejected. We no longer see it as it was told to us, but we experience it as we are insulted. We have been allowed to taste from the cup of His sufferings, and we also, at the same time, experience His great joy. Hebrews says that we should be  

“looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God”—Hebrews 12:2. 

Jesus pursued His joy by going to the cross, and as we endure the suffering brought about by bearing His cross, we are pursuing our own joy through Him. We suffer with Him in order that we might also be raised with Him in glory. And the insults that we receive, rather than make us weaker, make us stronger. Or as Paul said,  

“For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong”—2 Corinthians 12:10.

When we demonstrate by our lives that He is worth suffering for, we are “blessed” because our reward in heaven will be great. We are taking our place in a long line of believers who testified for Jesus. We know that our testimony is not in vain, and while justice might be delayed for a time, it is not denied. We will receive the great reward made available to us by Christ: the eternal, everlasting delight of knowing and being known by Him, partaking of joy unspeakable and full of glory, acquiring the object of our faith, the salvation and rapturous, enriching joy of our souls. Amen.