The Greatest Accolade

Everyone of us love to be appreciated by our loved ones. Since our childhood, we are often trained to excel at a specific task so that we will be appreciated with prizes, awards and accolades. Being appreciated motivates us even more to work hard and excel in our jobs. When athletes, who represent a country in olympics achieve a gold medal, they are considered as pride of the nation and will be showered by lot of accolades, honors, etc by the corresponding government and various organizations. Most of us strive hard to give our best to the assigned task at our work place to gain the favor of our superior officials and expect accolades or promotions or even hikes in our salaries to be successful in our career. Even at our homes, we often expect subtle gestures of appreciation from our closed ones.

We spend lot of our time, energy and put lots of efforts to please our loved ones and superior officials at our work place to gain their favor, rewards and their appreciation. But did we ever thought about pleasing the one, who have meticulously and wonderfully created us as David says in Psalms 139 : 14 "....I am fearfully and wonderfully made.....". Do we know that He has determined the times and the place we live in for a divine and unique purpose, which he predestined even before our creation. He is yearning with all His heart to mend us and mould us to accomplish His vision for our lives and turn us to be a blessing for nations. But are we willing to surrender the broken piece of our lives in the hands of the grand weaver so that He can weave the broken pieces of our lives into beautiful tapestry? In this world, when companies are looking to hire people, they look for equipped and compatible people. On the contrary, our loving master does not look for equipped people but obedient people, who obeys him with complete obedience. Dr. Charles Stanley told that 

God is responsible for your obedience. But, you are responsible for your disobedience  

In Bible when we hear the word "Lord", we assume it to be the divinity of God but the actual Greek word "Kurious" refers to the owner of a slave, who submits everything to his master even his own identity. Often we think that being a slave is forfeiting our freedom but it is only being a slave to Jesus we experience true freedom and be a blessing for many people. When Moses obeyed to God, He could use him to deliver His people from the heavy hands of Pharoh. When Joseph took stand for God though he has to pay a big price and suffer in prison for being righteous, God honored him to be the prime minister of Egypt and used him as a channel of blessing for many nations. 

God has a unique purpose for each and everyone of our lives, some are ordained for complex roles, some for simple ones. But whatever our purpose is, whether small role or big role, it is equal in the eyes of God. He does not look at the significance of our achievements but the measure of degree of our obedience. It is only by accomplishing our divine purpose of our lives, we can have true sense of accomplishment as Paul says in II Timothy 4 : 7 "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race....". Though Jesus was going through intense pain and suffering, it is through the assurance of being at the center of God's will he can say "It is finished" on the cross. When we accomplish our divine mission that God has ordained for our lives, we can be honored with the greatest accolade one can ever have from our loving master "Well done, good and faithful servant". Not even the highest honor or accolade in this world can ever be compared to receive those few words from our Lord. He is yearning with all His heart to honor each and everyone of us with that greatest accolade, but are we willing to yield ourselves to our master's will ? All he is expecting from us is mere and complete obedience, but are we willing to obey him?