A crown of righteousness?

April 23, 2007

By John Prater

Will you receive a crown of righteousness? That’s a tough question. Tough questions require tough answers and tough preparation.

Most people would answer, “I hope so.” Is hope enough? Would it not be better to know for certain? One of the great features of the Scriptures is they reveal the laws of God. God has established laws for living life. The challenge is to educate ourselves in those laws and make them work for us or those laws will automatically work against us.

In this case, God has provided a plan for us to follow.

1. Preach the Word (either spoken verbally or through our actions in daily living.)

2. Be prepared in season and out of season. (Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, be prepared to do God’s work and bidding.)

3. Correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. (This includes self as well as others and requires the loving redemptive attitude of Jesus.)

4. Keep your head in all situations. (Whatever comes your way, God uses it to teach you and wants you to work through it to help others. Jesus is our wounded healer and we become wounded healers to help others.)

5. Endure hardship. (Success comes to us through all of our failures, and we grow, mature and change thereby. The beauty of the mountain is only known because of the climb.)

6. Do the work of an evangelist. (Be in the now, the moment, with the Holy Spirit and allow your conversation to be guided by Him in order to win souls to Jesus.)

7. Discharge all the duties of your ministry. (God has called and enabled all of us through the Holy Spirit and placed us where He wants us so we can minister to others. Everyone is a minister and has a ministry.)

In living our lives according to this plan we know, as did the apostle Paul, that when the day comes when we stand before the Lord, the righteous Judge, we will be ready to receive the crown of righteousness prepared for us. What an awesome victory!

“In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage — with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

“For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day — and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:1-8, NIV).

Chaplain John L. Prater serves the Department of Veterans Affairs Central Iowa Health Care System and is an Assemblies of God-endorsed chaplain.