The Power Of Incentives Taken From The Book The Law of Rewards By Permission From Randy Alcorn.
Business people work in a world of incentives. So do homemakers, schoolchildren, and every other human being regardless of age, nationality, or wealth. Every effective manager, every wise leader knows the importance of incentives. These are tangible motivators that may be personal, social, spiritual, physical, or financial. Unfortunately too many Christians consider incentives to be "secular", "carnal," or "unspiritual."
Most of us use rewards to motivate our children. So why are we surprised that God uses rewards to motivate us? By God's own design, all of us need incentives to motivate us to to our jobs and to do them well. Motivation by reward is not a result of the fall. Rather, it is God's original design for humanity.
To say, "I don't do anything for the reward - I do it only because it is right," may appear to take the spiritual high road. But in fact it's pseudospiritual. It goes against the grain of the way God created us and the way he himself motivates us. And it completely contradicts all the passages of Scripture that clearly attempt to motivate us by our desire for rewards. When we say, "You shouldn't do anything to gat a reward," do we imagine we are more spiritual than Jesus, Paul, and God's Word?
When our daughters lived in our home as teenagers, suppose I'd told one of them, "If you do a full day of yard work Saturday, I'll pay you fifty dollars and take you out to a nice dinner." Would it be wrong for her to want to earn the fifty dollars? Would it be wrong for her to look forward to going out to a nice dinner with her dad? Of course it wouldn't be wrong! I'm her father, I made the offer, and I want her to want those things!
Of course, it would be inappropriate if my daughter refused to work unless I offered her rewards. But because rewarding her was my idea, not hers, she would have every right to be motivated by the rewards offered her. In fact, my own joy would be lessened if she didn't want the rewards I offered her - especially the reward of enjoying that special dinner together.
"But God doesn't owe us anything," you might argue. "He has the right to expect us to work to for him with no thought of reward." True, we should be willing and happy to serve him, even if there was no payoff. Jesus addressed this when he said, "So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty'" (Luke 17:10).
The point is, God owes us nothing. So if we came to him and said, "You owe us - we want to be paid," we would be dead wrong.
But here is the incredible thing, the factor that turns the entire debate on its head - it wasn't our idea that God would reward us. It was his idea! Satan didn't make up the idea of incentives. Our sin nature didn't make it up. He designed us to need incentives to motivate us to do our jobs and do them well.
Suppose my daughter did the yard work joylessly and then said, "Dad, I just did my duty. I refuse the money, and I don't want to go to dinner with you." How would that make me feel?
We flatter ourselves - and insult God - when we say, "I don't care about reward."
He doesn't have to reward anyone for anything. He does it because he wants to! And make no mistake: regardless of what you and I think about it, that's exactly what he is going to do. "For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done" Matthew 16:27).
Why does God reward us? Because he is pleased by what we have done. A child who wants to be rewarded by his parents realizes they will be pleased by his good deeds. Hence, his desire for reward is not mercenary - it is inseparable from his love for his parents and his desire for their approval.
7:39:39 AM 
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