March 17

Fruit unto Life Eternal

He that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: — John 4:36

Those who work for this world often fail of reward; but those who do God’s work are sure of good wages and of glorious harvest. “The wages of sin is death,” and the wages of much of earth’s toil is disappointment; but the wages of doing good is life, and the joy is sure and eternal. It is often hard work which the Christian has to do. The sowing is ofttimes in tears, but the reaping is always in joy. Christ Himself found the sowing hard and sorrowful, but He has never been sorry in heaven for what it cost Him here. The old prophet having spoken of the sorrows and sufferings of Christ’s life, said, “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.”

We have other examples of the same. When He had gone through His sore temptation and was “an hungered,” we are told that angels came and ministered unto Him. In Gethsemane also, after His bitter agony, we read that there appeared an angel from heaven strengthening Him. May we not suppose that always when He had any special service, costing Him an outlay of strength, spiritual refreshment was imparted to Him in some secret way by His Father?

As He sits now on His throne and sees the millions of the redeemed coming home to glory, all saved through His sufferings, He never regrets that He gave such a price for their redemption, but rejoices and is satisfied with the wages which He receives. So it will be with all His followers who are permitted to suffer in any way in bringing lost ones home. The wages will a thousand times compensate for all the sacrifice and cost.

No true work for Christ has ever been in vain. On earth many a seed is dropped which dies in the soil; but no seed of heavenly truth which is sown in faith and watered with tears ever fails to spring up somewhere and some time into a plant of righteousness. It may not always grow as the sower hoped, nor always just where he hoped, nor when; yet no living word of God can ever die.

We should notice the kind of wages God gives His reapers. He does not pay them in gold and silver, but in life — life eternal. Those who work in God’s harvest-fields may not grow rich in men’s eyes, but they themselves grow into richer, riper, holier spiritual blessedness.