God Rewards Quotes & Sayings

Comfortless was my religion, anxiety of the anxieties, for I believed God was not love, but courage. Love came only as a reward. — Norman Mailer

A classic is like a cow: it gives fresh milk every morning. A classic is a book that rewards endlessly repeated reading. A classic is like the morning, like nature herself: ever young, ever renewing. No, not even like nature, for she, like us, is doomed to die. Only God is ever young, and only the Book he inspired never grows old. — Peter Kreeft

The presence of God is the finest of rewards. — Yann Martel

In all things preserve integrity; and the consciousness of your own uprightness will alleviate the toil of business, soften the hardness of ill-success and disappointments, and give you a humble confidence before God, when the ingratitude of people, or the iniquity of the times may rob you of other rewards. — Babe Paley

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own
a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. Albert Einstein, German-born American physicist — George Washington

there has to be somebody whom you adore who adores you. Someone whom you cannot but praise who praises and loves you - that is the foundation of identity. The praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards.3 However, if we put this power in the hands of a fallible, changeable person, it can be devastating. And if this person's regard is based on your fallible and changeable life efforts, your self-regard will be just as fleeting and fragile. Nor can this person be someone you can lose, because then you will have lost your very self. Obviously, no human love can meet these standards. Only love of the immutable can bring tranquillity. Only the unconditional love of God will do. — Timothy J. Keller

If we wish to be happy, monsieur, we must never comprehend duty; for, as soon as we comprehend it, it is implacable. One would say that it punishes you for comprehending it; but no, it rewards you for it; for it puts you into a hell where you feel God at your side. — Victor Hugo

I know a lot of people who are struggling musicians; it's a hard life, and I've risked being that. The rewards are tremendous now that I've made it, I thank God every day. But I put it all on the line for it. — Kid Rock

When you faithfully follow the three duties of a Christian, God rewards you openly. — Jentezen Franklin

TO worship God even for the sake of salvation or any other reward is equally degenerate. Love knows no reward. Give your love unto to God, but do not ask anything in return even from Him through pray. — Swami Vivekananda

Happy are they who freely mingle prayer and toil till God responds to the one and rewards the other. — Samuel I. Prime

About God, I cannot accept any concept based on the authority of the Church ... As long as I can remember. I have resented mass indoctrination. I cannot prove to you there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a liar. I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws — Albert Einstein

For the worthy there are many rewards on God's earth, but God has specially reserved love for the unworthy. — Rabindranath Tagore

The book of Genesis is a window into what cultures were like before the revelation of the Bible. One thing we see early on is the widespread practice of primogeniture - the eldest son inherited all the wealth, which is how they ensured the family kept its status and place in society. So the second or third son got nothing, or very little. Yet all through the Bible, when God chooses someone to work through, he chooses the younger sibling. He chooses Abel over Cain. He chooses Isaac over Ishmael. He chooses Jacob over Esau. He chooses David over all eleven of his older brothers. Time after time he chooses not the oldest, not the one the world expects and rewards. Never the one from Jerusalem, as it were, but always the one from Nazareth. — Timothy Keller

God wants us to choose to love him freely, even when that choice involves pain, because we are committed to him, not to our own good feelings and rewards. He wants us to cleave to him, as Job did, even when we have every reason to deny him hotly. That, I believe, is the central message of Job. Satan had taunted God with the accusation that humans are not truly free. Was Job being faithful simply because God had allowed him a prosperous life? Job's fiery trials proved the answer beyond doubt. Job clung to God's justice when he was the best example in history of God's apparent injustice. He did not seek the Giver because of his gifts; when all gifts were removed he still sought the Giver. — Philip Yancey

Since most houses today have running water, the ease with which most Americans can give water to a guest obscures the point that everyone in the biblical culture understood: "cold water" came only from the town well or cistern because water in jars at home warmed up very quickly in the heat. Giving a cup of cold water meant inconveniencing yourself and walking to the town well carrying a container, perhaps waiting in line to draw the water, lifting the water up out of the ground, and then carrying the water back to the house - all so someone could quench his thirst. The fact that Christ connects giving cold water with rewards to be received in the future is a powerful testimony to the value of even the most seemingly mundane good works in the eyes of God. — John W. Schoenheit

God rewards a person not for the deeds he does openly, but according to the thoughts and actions he has in secret. — Sunday Adelaja

I don't like to lose-at anything ... Yet I've grown most not from victories, but setbacks. If winning is God's reward, then losing is how he teaches us. — Serena Williams

We treat our future selves as though they were our children, spending most of the hours of most of our days constructing tomorrows that we hope will make them happy ... But our temporal progeny are often thankless. We toil and sweat to give them just what we think they will like, and they quit their jobs, grow their hair, move to or from San Francisco, and wonder how we could ever have been stupid enough to think they'd like that. We fail to achieve the accolades and rewards that we consider crucial to their well-being, and they end up thanking God that things didn't work out according to our shortsighted, misguided plan. — Daniel M. Gilbert

But I believe also the rewards of obedience are great, because at the root of real honor is always a sense of the sacredness of the person who is the object... When you love someone to the degree you love her, you see her as God sees her, and that is an instruction in the nature of God and humankind and of Being itself. — Marilynne Robinson

If you suffer [death] in the way of God, it will be your profit in this world, and your reward in the next. — Hassan Al-Banna

We take a cavalier approach to Scripture at our own peril. If the scientific and historical accounts are true, then the commandments, promises and penalties are much more so. The Bible is not just a guideline. It is the authoritative Word of God. Disobeying it has consequences. Obeying it has rewards. Yet we fudge. We compromise. We rationalize. We trade away our spiritual integrity for man's approval and as we do, we gradually erode our ability to distinguish right from wrong, to see our own failings, and to turn back in repentance to God. We simply have no idea how this cavalier attitude towards God's Word taints our witness and hinders the kingdom of God. — Craig Olson

I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him. If I do grow great, I'll grow less; for I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do. — Francis Bacon

If God had good intentions, he would have rewarded the sex. — M.F. Moonzajer

There is no inconsistency in saying that God rewards good works, provided we understand that nevertheless men obtain eternal life gratuitously. — John Calvin

Ah, did we but rightly understand what the demerit of sin is, we would rather admire the bounty of God than complain of the straithandedness of Providence. And if we did but consider that there lies upon God no obligation of justice or gratitud to reward any of our duties, it would cure our murmurs (Gen. 32:10). — John Flavel

God rewards the soul that focuses on Him with attention and love, and God rewards that soul by exercising a rigorous compulsion on it, mathematically proportional to this attention and love. We must abandon ourselves to this pressure, and run to the precise point where it leads, and not a single step further, not even in the direction of what is good. At the same time, we must continue to focus on God, with ever more love and attention, and in this way obtain an even greater compulsion - to become an object of a compulsion that possesses for itself a perpetually growing portion of the soul. Once God's compulsion possesses the whole soul, one has reached the state of perfection. But no matter what degree we reach, we must not accomplish anything beyond what we are irresistibly pressured (compelled) to do, not even in the way of good. — Simone Weil

I am constantly surprised at how I keep taking the gifts God has given me - my health, my intellectual and emotional gifts - and keep using them to impress people, receive affirmation and praise, and compete for rewards, instead of developing them for the glory of God. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

If God rewards the faithful with earthly rewards, then what leverage does the devil have? — James Rozoff

You will see in this my notion of good works, that I am far from expecting to merit heaven by them. By heaven we understand a state of happiness, infinite in degree, and eternal in duration. I can do nothing to deserve such rewards ... Even the mixed imperfect pleasures we enjoy in this world, are rather from God's goodness than our merit, how much more such happiness of heaven! — Benjamin Franklin

Whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him (Hebrews 11:6, emphasis added). Call that payoff contentment, satisfaction, peace, or excitement - it all adds up to one word: happiness — Randy Alcorn

God rewards those who seek Him. Not those who seek doctrine of religion or systems or creeds. Many settle for these lesser passions, but the reward goes to those who settle for nothing less than Jesus himself. And what is the reward? What awaits those who seek Jesus? Nothing short of the heart of Jesus. — Max Lucado

6And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God m must believe that he exists and m that he rewards those who seek him. — Anonymous

God Most High has said, "Is the reward of virtue aught save virtue?" ... Know, O man, that the covenant of servanthood is incumbent upon you, and that the covenant of Lordship is incumbent upon His magnanimity, as He Most High has said, " ... and fulfill your covenant, I shall fulfill My covenant." — Ibn Ata Allah

If the divine Logos of God the Father became son of man and man so that He might make men gods and the sons of God, let us believe that we shall reach the realm where Christ Himself now is; for He is the head of the whole body (cf. Col. 1:18), and endued with our humanity has gone to the Father as forerunner on our behalf. God will stand 'in the midst of the congregation of gods' (Ps. 82:1 LXX) - that is, of those who are saved - distributing the rewards of that realm's blessedness to those found worthy to receive them, not separated from them by any space. — Maximus The Confessor

Looking back on a 30-year teaching career full of rewards and prizes, somehow I can't completely believe that I spent my time on earth institutionalized; I can't believe that centralized schooling is allowed to exist at all as a gigantic indoctrination and sorting machine, robbing people of their children. Did it really happen? Was this my life? God help me. — John Taylor Gatto

To deny that there are sorrows and rewards after death is to deny the existence of God; since God exists, it must be necessarily so. But only God could know the punishments meted out to the guilty, or the place that holds them. All the catalogues made herebefore are only the fruit of a more or less disordered imagination. Theologians should leave to the poets the depiction of Hell, and not themselves seek to frighten minds with hideous paintings and appalling books. — Collin De Plancy

6 And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. — Anonymous

Do not mistake me, Inrithi. In this much Conphas is right. You are all staggering drunks to me. Boys who would play at war when you should kennel with your mothers. You know nothing of war. War is dark. Black as pitch. It is not a God. It does not laugh or weep. It rewards neither skill not daring. It is not a trial of souls, nor the measure of wills. Even less is it a tool, a means to some womanish end. It is merely the place where the iron bones of the earth meet the hollow bones of men and break them.
You have offered me war, and I have accepted. Nothing more. I will not regret your losses. I will not bow my head before your funeral pyres. I will not rejoice at your triumphs. But I have taken the wager. I will suffer with you. I will put Fanim to the sword, and drive their wives and children to the slaughter. And when I sleep, I will dream of their lamentations and be glad of heart. — R. Scott Bakker

...[I]t doesn't take an advanced degree to figure out that this education talk is less a strategy for mitigating inequality than it is a way of rationalizing it. To attribute economic results to school years finished and SAT scores achieved is to remove matters from the realm of, well, economics and to relocate them to the provinces of personal striving and individual intelligence. From this perspective, wages aren't what they are because one party (management) has a certain amount of power over the other (workers); wages are like that because the god of the market, being surpassingly fair, rewards those who show talent and gumption. Good people are those who get a gold star from their teacher in elementary school, a fat acceptance letter from a good college, and a good life when they graduate. All because they are the best. Those who don't pay attention in high school get to spend their days picking up discarded cans by the side of the road. Both outcomes are our own doing. — Thomas Frank

I think that is why - why God allows hard things in life. To prepare us. To knock off rough edges - pride, bias, envy, selfishness - so that when we get to heaven we will be more in tune - more able to enjoy the beautiful things we'll find there. Maybe that's what the rewards will be. A deeper appreciation of what we are given - what we are a part of. — Janette Oke

To know God, you must appreciate the salvaging will of His son. Through Christ, we become true leaders worthy of rewards! — Israelmore Ayivor

Jesus stood at a fork in the road. Would he fulfill his purpose and bring glory to God, or would he shrink back and live a comfortable, self-centered life? You face the same choice. Will you live for your own goals, comfort, and pleasure, or will you live the rest of your life for God's glory, knowing that he has promised eternal rewards? — Rick Warren

Faith is a gift of God, which man can neither give nor take away by promise of rewards or menace of torture. — Thomas Hobbes

An abuser doesn't change because he feels guilty or gets sober or finds God. He doesn't change after seeing the fear in his children's eyes or feeling them drift away from him. It doesn't suddenly dawn on him that his partner deserves better treatment. Because of his self-focus, combined with the many rewards he gets from controlling you, an abuser changes only when he has to, so the most important element in creating a context for change in an abuser is placing him in a situation where he has no other choice. Otherwise, it is highly unlikely that he will ever change his behavior. — Lundy Bancroft

Our rewards in heaven are a result of God's crowning His own gifts. — Saint Augustine

The truth is, it is more obedience to submit to God in a low calling than to submit to Him in a higher calling. For it is sheer obedience, mere obedience, that makes you go on in a low calling; but there may be much self-love that makes men go on in a higher calling. For there are riches, credit, and account in the world; and rewards come in by that, which do not in the other. — Jeremiah Burroughs

God's purpose for man is to acquire a seeing eye and an understanding heart." "God gave you life and bestowed upon you his attributes; eventually you will return to him." "The rewards of life and devotion to God are love and inner rapture, and the capacity to receive the light of God. — Rumi

We are afraid that Heaven is a bribe, and that if we make it our goal we shall no longer be disinterested. It is not so. Heaven offers nothing that the mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to. There are rewards that do not sully motives. A man's love for a woman is not mercenary because he wants to marry her, nor his love for poetry mercenary because he wants to read it, nor his love of exercise less disinterested because he wants to run and leap and walk. Love, by definition, seeks to enjoy its object. — C.S. Lewis

I'm not saying that suffering is our fault. I believe we suffer because sin has taken hold of the world. And with sin comes selfishness and heartlessness and wickedness. But I also think there will be a day of reckoning, Nick, when God lays out all we've done and judges our actions. That's not as popular to talk about anymore, I suppose. We all like to hear about a God who loves and forgives rewards. But He isn't holy and just if He doesn't deal with all those wrongs. I would never want to stand before God without having done everything in my power to extend His mercy to the people around me whenever I could. — Janette Oke

There are three points of doctrine the belief of which forms the foundation of all morality. The first is the existence of God; the second is the immortality of the human soul; and the third is a future state of rewards and punishments. Suppose it possible for a man to disbelieve either of these three articles of faith and that man will have no conscience, he will have no other law than that of the tiger or the shark. The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy. — John Quincy Adams

A sick person is Allah's guest for as long as he is ill. Every day he is sick, God gives him countless rewards, as long as he says ' al hamdulillah', praise be
to God, and does not fight it and complain. When God returns to him his health, he expiates his sins and gives him the status of the newly-born
(completely pure and free of any sin). Illness is a mercy and a blessing. — Kristiane Backer

God is love, and when we pray we are drawing near to love, and all our hatred must melt away like the snow melts when the sun shines on it in spring. Leave Lucien to God, Annette. He rewards both good and evil, but remember, He loves Lucien just the same as He loves Dani. — Patricia St. John

There is no reward from God to those who seek it from men. — Charles Spurgeon

God makes it easy to begin: just do it! God also makes it easy to progress in prayer, for he rewards our efforts with peace and joy. And he makes it easiest of all at the end, for it gradually becomes more natural and delightful. — Peter Kreeft

It is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. Hebrews 11:6 — Tony Dungy

The strange idea of having to love God so that He does not punish me for my rebelliousness and disappointment, but instead rewards me with the love that forgives all, becomes just as much the expression of our childish dependency and insecurity as the assumption that, like our parents, God is in desperate need of our love. But is this not a completely grotesque idea? A higher being dependent on inauthentic feelings dictated by morality is strongly reminiscent of the insecurity displayed by our frustrated and disoriented parents. Such a being can be called God only by people who have never questioned their own parents or thought about their dependency on them. — Alice Miller

I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls. — Albert Einstein

It is man's duty to love and to fear God, even without hope of reward or fear of punishment. — Maimonides

Don't let yourself forget that God's grace rewards not only those who never slip, but also those who bend and fall. So sing! The song of rejoicing softens hard hearts. It makes tears of godly sorrow flow from them. Singing summons the Holy Spirit. Happy praises offered in simplicity and love lead the faithful to complete harmony, without discord. Don't stop singing. — Hildegard Of Bingen

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful-
The eye of the little god, four cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish. — Sylvia Plath

We will drink what we thirst for and eat what we hunger for if we allow ourselves to be used for what we were created for! — Israelmore Ayivor

God has reserved momentous victories and great rewards for us, but we'll never make it to our milestones if we can't make it through our moments. — Beth Moore

Little men," he once said, "spend their days in pursuit of such things. I know from experience that at the moment of their deaths they see their lives shattered before them like glass. I've seen them die. They fall away as if they have been pushed, and the expressions on their faces are those of the most unbelieving surprise. Not so, the man who knows the virtues and lives by them. The world goes this way and that. Ideas are in fashion or not, and those who should prevail are often defeated. But it doesn't matter. The virtues remain uncorrupted and uncorruptible. They are rewards in themselves, the bulwarks with which we can protect our vision of beauty, and the strengths by which we may stand, unperturbed, in the storm that comes when seeking God. — Mark Helprin

We don't honor just to get a reward; we honor because it is the heart of God, and it is our delight. — John Bevere

God is not limited to any person, but calls freely whomsoever He pleases, and bestows on those who are called whatever rewards He thinks fit. — John Calvin

When I rely on my faith, I know God wants to reward and bless me but not because of some great act that I did but because of who He is. — Torii Hunter

Human nature, gentleman. It is original sin that leads men to misfortune, every time. I am a speculator in the market, gentlemen, and that is part of God's plan. Men only learn through suffering. So I punish human weakness, and God rewards me. — Edward Rutherfurd

It was not guilt that froze me. I had taught myself never to feel guilt
It was not a ghastly sense of loss that froze me. I had taught myself to covet nothing.
It was not a loathing of death that froze me. I had taught myself to think of death as a friend.
It was not heartbroken rage against injustice that froze me. I had taught myself that a human being might as well took for diamond tiaras in the gutter as for rewards and punishments that were fair.
It was not the thought that I was so unloved that froze me. I had taught myself to do without love.
It was not the thought that God was cruel that froze me. I had taught myself never to expect anything from Him.
What froze me was the fact that I had absolutely no reason to move in any direction. What had made me move through so many dead and pointless years was curiosity. — Kurt Vonnegut

Whoever would entitle himself after death through the merits of his Redeemer, to the noblest of rewards, let him serve God throughout life in this most excellent of all duties, doing good to our brethren. Whoever is sensible of his offences, let him take this way especially of evidencing his repentance. — Thomas Secker

Peace is worth more than all worldly possessions; in addition, God rewards it even in this life. — Vincent De Paul

One reason there are so many unhappy Christians is they feel God should be doing them favors and heaping upon them material rewards and benefits, rather than working as a Carpenter to shape their lives back into His own image. — Jamie Buckingham

We are not saints yet, but we, too, should beware. Uprightness and virtue do have their rewards, in self-respect and in respect from others, and it is easy to find ourselves aiming for the result rather than the cause. Let us aim for joy, rather than respectability. Let us make fools of ourselves from time to time, and thus see ourselves, for a moment, as the all-wise God sees us. — Philip Neri

The most wonderful pleasure on earth is in saving treasures in heaven ... The most wonderful treasure lies in the pleasure of doing so ... Live life so well! — Israelmore Ayivor

The rewards of integrity are immeasurable. One is the indescribable inner peace and serenity that come from knowing we are doing what is right; another is an absence of the guilt and anxiety that accompany sin. Another reward of integrity is the confidence it can give us in approaching God. When virtue garnishes our thoughts unceasingly, our confidence is strong in the presence of God. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

Don't obey God to get things. Obey God to get God. He is your shield and your very great reward. — Mike Pilavachi

Stop. That was a mistake. It shouldn't have happened."
"No?"
"No."
"I could offer you more."
"What?"
"Power. Access. Rewards. You'd need be available only to me."
"Are you asking me to be your mistress?"
"Yes."
"Oh, my God."
"Is that a yes?"
"No, Ethan, Jesus. Definitely not. — Chloe Neill

Be it observed, moreover, that suffering such as God accepts and rewards for Christ's sake, must have God's glory as its end. If I suffer that, I may earn a name, or win applause among men; if I venture into trial merely that I may be respected for it, I shall get my reward; but it will be the reward of the Pharisee, and not the crown of the sincere servant of the Lord Jesus. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

His Majesty [the Lord] ... rewards great services with trials, and there can be no better reward, for out of trials springs love for God. — Teresa Of Avila

Giving in to fear alters God's best plan for your life. So use the power of God's Word to do what He wants you to do ... even if you have to do it afraid! The rewards are great. — Joyce Meyer

Thank God I have four sons. The mother/daughter relationship is one of mankind's great mysteries, and for womankind, it can be hellaciously complicated. My mother and I are quintessential examples of the rewards and frustrations, and the joys and infuriations it can yield. — Melissa Gilbert

The God understood as a father figure, who guided ultimate personal decisions, answered our prayers, and promised rewards and punishment based upon our behavior was not designed to call anyone into maturity. — John Shelby Spong

Our time on earth is not well spent by counting rewards before God has given them to us, but rather, by looking for our faults and repenting of them — Dan Schilling

The errors of God, like those of great artists, or of true lovers, bring forth so many joyful rewards, that at times it is worth wishing for them. — Paulo Coelho

There will be no danger of idolatry. The earth and the heavens and all things will declare the glory of God, and the essence of our joy in them will be joy in him. What makes our reward truly great is the greater fullness of our fellowship with God. — John Piper

God rewards gamblers and fools. The crucial thing, when you win, is knowing which you were. — Mark Twain

Before we can know God and understand his great plan it is first necessary for us to believe that he exists and that he rewards all who diligently seek him. — Joseph Franklin Rutherford

He who forgiveth, and is reconciled unto his enemy,
shall receive his reward from God; for he loveth not the unjust doers. — Thomas Szasz

Love hunger and thirst for the sake of Christ. Insofar as you pacify your body, so much much will you do make your soul virtuous. God, who rewards thoughts, words, and deeds, will give good in return for even a small thing which you gladly suffer for His sake. — Gennadius Of Constantinople

God's Law of Cause and Effect: Your rewards in life will always be equal to the amount and quality of service rendered, in the long run. — Denis Waitley

Henri Nouwen wrote of the spiritual work of gratitude: To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives - the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections - that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.2 — Brennan Manning

Faith is a gift of God bestowed as a reward for personal righteousness. — Bruce R. McConkie

If God thought it necessary to offer rewards for love, your God must be immoral. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Put in the work. Reap the rewards — Bobby F. Kimbrough Jr.

You know nothing of war. War is dark. Black as pitch. It is not a God. It does not laugh or weep. It rewards neither skill nor daring. It is not a trial of souls, not the measure of wills. Even less is it a tool, a means to some womanish end. It is merely the place where the iron bones of the earth meet the hollow bones of men and break them. — R. Scott Bakker

Success is a planned outcome, not an accident. Success and mediocrity are both absolutely predictable because they follow the natural and immutable law of sowing and reaping. Simply stated, if you want to reap more rewards, you must sow more service, contribution, and value. That is the no-nonsense formula. Some of God's blessings have prerequisites! Success in life is not based on need but on seed. So you've got to become good at either planting in the springtime or begging in the fall. — Tommy Newberry

Gretel in Darkness:


This is the world we wanted.
All who would have seen us dead
are dead. I hear the witch's cry
break in the moonlight through a sheet
of sugar: God rewards.
Her tongue shrivels into gas....

Now, far from women's arms
And memory of women, in our father's hut
we sleep, are never hungry.
Why do I not forget?
My father bars the door, bars harm
from this house, and it is years.

No one remembers. Even you, my brother,
summer afternoons you look at me as though
you meant to leave,
as though it never happened.
But I killed for you. I see armed firs,
the spires of that gleaming kiln--

Nights I turn to you to hold me
but you are not there.
Am I alone? Spies
hiss in the stillness, Hansel
we are there still, and it is real, real,
that black forest, and the fire in earnest. — Louise Gluck

God rewards the person who is diligent. And for those who will take time in their day to seek the Lord, for those who will take time to read His Word, for those who will take time to wait upon Him, He will reveal His truths to them. — Greg Laurie

The idea that there is a God who rewards and punishes, and who can reward, if he so wishes, the meanest and vilest of the human race, so that he will be eternally happy, and can punish the best of the human race, so that he will be eternally miserable, is subversive of all morality. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Ask God to show you if there are certain steps of obedience He wants you to take. He'll tell you. You can depend on it. When you come to a place where you trust Him so thoroughly that you will obey whatever He says, you'll find that obedience won't be a gut-wrenching misery; it will be a privilege. You'll obey because the rewards are great. You'll obey out of the desire to have nothing come between you and God. You'll obey because you'll pay any price to not have your light shut off. — Stormie O'martian