IBCT DAILY DEVOTIONAL Dec 21 2020

Payments from the Master

Call the laborers and pay them their wages. — Matthew 20:8

God is a good Master; He pays His servants while they work and also when their work is done. One of His payments is this: an easy conscience. If you have spoken faithfully of Jesus to one person, when you go to bed at night you feel happy, thinking, "I have today discharged my conscience of that man's blood."

There is a great comfort in doing something for Jesus. What a happiness to place jewels in His crown and allow Him to see of the travail of His soul! There is also great reward in watching the first buddings of conviction in a soul! To say of that girl in the class, "She has a tender heart—I do hope that the Lord is at work in her." To go home and pray over that boy who said something in the afternoon that made you think he must know more of divine truth than you had feared! Oh, the joy of hope! But as for the joy of success—it is unspeakable! This joy, overwhelming as it is, is a hungry thing—you pine for more of it. To be a soul-winner is the happiest thing in the world. With every soul you bring to Christ, you get a new heaven on earth. But who can conceive of the bliss that awaits us above! How sweet is the sentence, "Enter into the joy of your master!"1 Do you know what the joy of Christ is over a saved sinner? This is the very joy that we are to possess in heaven. Yes, when He ascends the throne, you shall ascend with Him. When the heavens ring with "Well done, well done," you will have a part in the reward. You have worked with Him; you have suffered with Him; you will now reign with Him. You have sown with Him; you will reap with Him. Your face was covered with sweat like His, and your soul, like His, was grieved for the sins of men; now your face will be bright with heaven's splendor as is His countenance, and now your soul will be filled with heavenly joys just as His soul is.

1) Matthew 25:21, 23