Your Reward is Me

January 10, 2010

Your Reward is Me

After a two week hiatus for the Christmas holidays, once again we gathered in our office for our Monday Marketplace prayer meeting and I think all of us were eager to enter in to the prayer time and to hopefully receive a word from the Lord for the year to come.

As Ryan and Elissa led the worship time, you could immediately sense the presence of the Holy Spirit in a special way and all of us were earnestly worshiping in the Spirit. Early in this time, I began to hear these words in my heart, “Your reward is Me, your reward is Me”, over and over.

My first response was to question why I was hearing this phrase over and over, it seemed to be out of step with the focus of our prayer time. I thought to myself, how does this relate to the direction we are seeking for the new year?

But as the worship continued, more and more revelation began to come to my understanding. I thought about Luke 24 and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus who were the first to see Christ after His resurrection. Though these two were not part of the 12 disciples, the death of Christ had impacted them deeply and they spoke of it while walking on the road. Then unknown to them, Christ joins them on their journey and immediately they begin to tell Him about the recent events in Jerusalem and Christ’s crucifixion.

Then the stranger began to share with them from the scriptures how Christ was to suffer and die in order to enter His glory. As evening approached, they entered a village for the evening and they constrained Him to enter with them. As He broke bread and blessed it, the scripture says their eyes were opened and they recognize the resurrected Jesus who then suddenly disappeared before them.

At that moment they declare, “Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked with us on the road... ?” These two disciples, who had such deep loss and despair and all their aspirations and hopes dashed, were suddenly experiencing the first appearance of the resurrected Christ, even before the inner circle of disciples. Why, I wondered?

I felt the answer was in the words I was hearing, your reward is Me. Yes they had experienced immense loss, but the reward for this loss was His manifest presence. I believe the Lord was showing us that in this coming year, God is exchanging the loss in our lives with ... Him, His tangible presence. I have heard several other prophetic leaders, including T.D. Jakes declare this year would be a year of the double portion and others have declared it a year of restoration.

Over the past three years, Joan and I have experienced great loss, and Joan perhaps more than me. Our nation has suffered loss spiritually and I’m sure each of you could identify loss in some area of your life. Like the two disciples in Luke 24, I believe the Lord is saying that we can exchange the loss in our lives for a greater measure of Him. Sometimes we focus on various blessings, whether financial, spiritual or natural, but the reality is the greatest blessing we can receive is His presence.

This principle is evident as well in Genesis 15 where the Lord appears to Abram and says, “I am your shield and exceeding great reward.” Abram responds, “Lord what will you give me seeing I go childless,..” Abram could only see his loss, but God wanted him to see that He was more than any loss or lack that Abram might perceive.

During the worship, we took time to corporately exchange our loss for the promise of His presence, but I believe this a promise for the entire Body of Christ in the coming year. I am also expecting that we will see this promise manifest in some way at the Unite for Dominion conference, Jan. 28-30 in Calgary. We would love to see you there, please go to www.unitefordominion.ca for more details on how you could attend.