Earning a Wage From God

[Soyeong]

It seems silly to me for someone to think that there is anything that we can do to earn a wage from God or to think that God gave commands to His people in for the goal of showing us that we can't earn anything from Him by obeying them. It is not as though God has said anything like that if anyone does a good enough job of obeying Him or even manage to have perfect obedience, then He will become indebted to them and owe them something in return. Yet time and time again people quote verses that speak against earning a wage from God by our works as though that were ever the reason why God requires us to obey Him when in reality there are many verses that speak against doing that because that has always been a fundamental misunderstanding of why He requires us to obey Him. The fact obeying God was never about trying to earn a wage from Him does not mean that we are not obligated to obey Him for some other reason.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

According to the parable, those who worked for 1 hour still got paid for the whole day.

 

[bling]

In some ways you have already been "paid" (gifted) you can only "work" out of gratitude.

 

[Fervent]

To the one who works, it is not counted as grace but as debt. No one puts God in their debt.

 

[fhansen]

It seems silly to me for someone to think that there is anything that we can do to earn a wage from God or to think that God gave commands to His people in for the goal of showing us that we can't earn anything from Him by obeying them. It is not as though God has said anything like that if anyone does a good enough job of obeying Him or even manage to have perfect obedience, then He will become indebted to them and owe them something in return. Yet time and time again people quote verses that speak against earning a wage from God by our works as though that were ever the reason why God requires us to obey Him when in reality there are many verses that speak against doing that because that has always been a fundamental misunderstanding of why He requires us to obey Him. The fact obeying God was never about trying to earn a wage from Him does not mean that we are not obligated to obey Him for some other reason.

Yes, doing the right thing is no more or less than what we should do, what we were created to do-and there's no wage deserved for that. But doing wrong, that which we were not created to do, certainly merits or results in a negative change in our status, a loss of relationship with God. But merely observing laws does not rectify this situation. The relationship, itself, must be rectified/reconciled first, then we're returned to a just status, now with God again and under His grace where obedience begins to flow of its own accord.