To Be Seen for the Honors of Men? Lost reward?

[Anonymous]

I define becoming like God as becoming my absolute best self – and that is the best reward I can imagine, in this life or eternally.

Love your musings, nibbler. Kind of like losing in order to gain – or, perhaps, gaining as a result of losing, as long as the gaining was not intended for self-gratification and praise from others?

Or, perhaps, :crazy:

[Anonymous]

Old Timer wrote:

To be like him – at least, that is what is stated in the passages from which the quote is taken.

If that is the reward, it is interesting to contemplate what that says about how God “gives his alms”.

From Nibbler:

Quote:

o be like god… and how much time does god spend thinking about what reward god will receive from god?

Could the reward be freedom from the quest of chasing after rewards?

You could argue that the quest is over once you receive the reward but what happens when you lose all desire to chase reward? Do you go to outer darkness or is that how you become god?

God is constantly telling people to praise him, for mankind to glorify him — he not only wants recognition, he wants glory. How do you reconcile that within our discussion?

[Anonymous]

https://bycommonconsent.com/2015/12/07/they-have-their-reward/

I blogged about this very topic in 2015, and in that post I referred to a talk I gave in a mission conference. Missionaries are particularly prone to care about the glory of their numbers.

I think the problem is when people seek and are rewarded by others seeing them do the good works and THAT becomes their motivation – not the works themselves for their own sake or for the sake of the recipients. Even if you are doing good works to be an example, that’s still fine (and I think awards are a part of this thinking). It’s when you are doing good works for personal gain that you are on a slippery slope. Rewarding fellow volunteers, setting a good example, wanting to help more people by advertising the good that’s being done – all of these are GOOD motives.

[Anonymous]

hawkgrrrl wrote:

https://bycommonconsent.com/2015/12/07/they-have-their-reward/

I blogged about this very topic in 2015, and in that post I referred to a talk I gave in a mission conference. Missionaries are particularly prone to care about the glory of their numbers.

I think the problem is when people seek and are rewarded by others seeing them do the good works and THAT becomes their motivation – not the works themselves for their own sake or for the sake of the recipients. Even if you are doing good works to be an example, that’s still fine (and I think awards are a part of this thinking). It’s when you are doing good works for personal gain that you are on a slippery slope. Rewarding fellow volunteers, setting a good example, wanting to help more people by advertising the good that’s being done – all of these are GOOD motives.

Those were my motives. And in spite of scripture, I believe God honors those motives.

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

God is constantly telling people to praise him, for mankind to glorify him — he not only wants recognition, he wants glory. How do you reconcile that within our discussion?

Could it be the case that some say god wants people to constantly praise and glorify him but what god actually wants is anyone’s guess? Maybe it’s a case of people projecting. God is viewed as an entity that seeks worship, praise, glory, etc. because the people that are conceptualizing god that way may be seeking to be worshiped, praised, and glorified.

This topic is part of what drove my thoughts in the What does worship mean to you? thread.

Earlier in the thread you brought up narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). I think people with NPD are often disproportionately represented in leadership. A person that has NPD may seek out leadership more than someone without the disorder and in general people in an organization may be more prone to see someone with NPD as a leader.

One of the DSM-5 criteria for NPD is “requiring constant admiration.” If people with NPD are disproportionately represented in religious leadership then I can see how a god that requires constant admiration would make it into scripture. It’s the lens through which a person with NPD would receive revelation.

[Anonymous]

The orthodox, Christian God’s desire is what we describe as Lucifer’s plan: “Praise me! Give me glory! Tell me how great I am!”

The Mormon God says, “This is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”

If you are interested, I wrote the following in 2010:

“Believing We Can Become Like Our Father Is NOT Vaunting Ourselves”

(http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2010/03/believing-we-can-become-like-our-father.html)

[Anonymous]

I think my faith is based on being in a position that God isn’t watching me or keeping track of things I’m doing. So i don’t believe he deals out rewards or prevents them from coming to me if I want rewards by others rather than from him.

I believe rewards and punishments are natural consequences of thoughts and actions.

And I believe God is there at judgment day to see what kind of person I’ve become…the sum total of all those rewards and punishments I’ve brought on myself.

If you keep reading in Matthew 6 from the scripture you started with…

Quote:

v.21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

That whole chapter of Matthew 6 is good stuff on checking ourselves on what our motivations are, and where our heart lies for what we desire. The way we believe things and have thoughts will impact how we outwardly act to others. Therefore, the focus is on introspection.

I don’t take it literal on how the scriptures say rewards are doled out.

Our spiritual journeys include how we process what is going on around us, how we frame them, how we believe they will help us make choices in the future and become a person that can love others more freely.

When your eye is single to God’s glory…the rewards are there and that is sufficient for the soul, and the warning is doing things for the wrong reasons. You can have very different rewards based on what you are seeking.

I’m not sure I answered any of your questions. Just pontificating. Sorry…probably not very rewarding.

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