Matthew 16:27–28 (NIV)

“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 they have done. Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

A message for all my BOLD Dreamers out there.

If you bought my book BOLD Devotional, you now realize that “bold” isn’t a feeling, it’s a response. A DAILY response that causes you to have to keep saying YES to the Lord, keeping saying YES to who He’s called you to be, doing the things He’s called you to do.

But maaaaaaaannnnnn, whoever said this was EASY has never done it.

Can I get an “Amen! Hallelujah.”

Truth be told, boldness is NOT easy.
Obedience is NOT convenient.
Storming after the God-sized dream in your heart is NO JOKE. It’s NOT easy, but it IS simple.

Simple in that, God isn’t complex. The person He’s asked us to be and the things He’s asked us to do aren’t complex. In fact, they’re rather quite simple, and yes, at times…. Very, very hard.

Here’s the good news and where this Scripture out of Matthew brings me so much peace in the GAP in between (you know the space between where you are and where God said you’d be): God’s not after your results, He’s after your heart.

He doesn’t reward us for right-doing. He rewarded us by giving us righteousness or right-standing with Him through the sacrifice of His son, Jesus. That means, this isn’t about earning or striving, pushing or forcing, it’s not about stats or keepin’ up with the Jonses (whoever they are), it’s about divine union, alignment, partnership with Him and come to find out, that process if more refining and telling than anything else we could ever do in this life.

So yes, the pressure is still a privilege and the tension is still working out of you what can’t go with you.

But for all of you in route to the promise, in need of some truth mixed with hope because you’re results are less than ideal and you feel like, frankly, throwing in the towel: DON’T!

And here’s why:

1. GOD DOES NOT REWARD RESULTS—HE REWARDS FAITHFULNESS

This theme is consistent from Genesis to Revelation.

• Hebrews 11:6: “Without faith it is impossible to please God… He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.”
• 1 Samuel 16:7: God looks at the heart, not outward appearance.
• Matthew 25: The servants are rewarded for faithfulness, not the amount they produced.

God never judges you by outcomes you can’t control.

He rewards:

• Your obedience
• Your surrender
• Your faith
• Your heart posture
• Your willingness to follow Him

Not the “results” the world measures.

2. HE'S AFTER YOUR CHARACTER, NOT BUILDING YOUR RESUME

Scripture says, “What they have done” but this is speaking specifically to the fruit of faith, not performance.

The Greek word praxis (“what they have done”) is not about external success. It’s about the lived expression of a person’s faith.

Remember. God’s economy is upside down from ours. The world measures success only by the results: the status, the numbers, the money, the cars, but God doesn’t look at the appearance, He looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). He looks at your obedience.

Think of it this way:

• Faith is the root.
• Obedience is the fruit.
• God rewards the fruit because it proves the root is alive.

For example:
Noah—120 years of obedience with zero evidence! God told Noah to build an ark when…it had never rained like that. For over a century, the “results” looked ridiculous. Yet Noah kept hammering, cutting, building, obeying.

Obedience > Outcomes.

Abraham—25 years between the promise and Isaac. God promised him a son at age 75. He didn’t hold Isaac until he was 100. That is: 25 YEARS of believing a promise with No evidence, a barren wife, an aging body, and. timeline that made no sense!

Romans 4 says he did not waver because he believed the One who promised was faithful.

Faith is measured in years, not minutes.

Joseph —13 years of suffering before promotion. Here’s a kid who’s betrayed at 17 by his own family, sold into slavery as a prison. And the dream he had that put him in jail? Forgotten. Unfulfilled for over a decade.

Then in ONE DAY, everything changed. But the waiting season was 13 years of nothing “working.”

But God was working on him before working through him.

David—about 15 years between anointing and the throne. He was anointed as a teenager, took the bold step in killing Goliath, and then as a “result,” spent years running, hiding, and being hunted. Quite honestly, he looked LESS like a king the closer he got to the promise.

Hannah—years of barrenness before Samuel. We all love Hannah’s breakthrough but it didn’t come quickly. She waited. And waited. But when it came, it carried prophetic weight for a nation.

Waiting births deeper worship.

The early church—Jesus gone, persecution rising, no “results”. But Jesus had told them “Wait in Jerusalem…”

They waited in a room with no proof anything would happen…until the Holy Spirit fell at Pentecost.

Sometimes the LAST step of obedience is the one that unlocks the FIRST sign of breakthrough.

Truth be told: obedience is a lifestyle with Jesus. It’s knowing how to have high standards because of who He is and yet, no expectations around what He will do and when He will do it.
It’s sitting so close with Him that you learn about His heart, and no longer ask for what’s in His hand. It’s an intimacy that doesn’t something IN you and releases something THROUGH you…

This is where steps of FAITHfulness come into play. James says the same thing:

“Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.” (James 2:18)

Not works-based salvation. Not performance pressure. Just faith expressed through obedience. It is faith that produces action, and it is that faith-filled action Jesus rewards-not result-filled action, FAITH-FILLED.

3. Finally, GOD REWARDS FAITHFULNESS BECAUSE FAITHFULNESS REVEALS RELATIONSHIP.

Your results don’t impress God. Your effort doesn’t convince God. Your numbers don’t sway God.

But your YES moves His heart. YOU move His heart.

When Jesus says He will reward you:

• He’s rewarding your surrender
• Your trust
• Your obedience
• Your willingness to carry your cross (Matthew 16:24)
• Your partnership with Him

He’s not rewarding you the way the world rewards achievement. He’s rewarding the way you walked with Him. And come to find out, the closer you walk with Him, the simpler it is to obey.

Today, I encourage you with this: Let go of timelines, expectations, false responsibility, fear, shame, and doubt. And if you’ve been journeying for quite some time now, let me close with this: ME TOO.

You are not alone. You are not crazy. You are likely tired and in need of Hope. It’s a good thing Hope also isn’t a feeling but a name, JESUS! I speak to your soul and I say, “So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up” (Galatians 6:9).

Your harvest of blessing may not look like what you expect, simply BETTER. God’s “reward” is often Himself.

Sometimes the reward is:

• More revelation
• More authority
• Greater intimacy
• Seeing His Kingdom break through
• Eternal impact
• Joy that cannot be shaken

Perhaps what you DO isn’t the miracle God’s after, rather WHO YOU BECOME in the process. This is the testimony!

God isn’t looking at whether you built the dream in your heart. He’s smiling because you committed to building with Him.

He rewards the faith behind the movement,
not the movement itself.

You don’t need to force results. Just walk faithfully with Him.

You do you, let God do God.

Journey well my friend.

✨ Want to take the next step in your own dream journey? Grab a copy of my book BOLD: 101 Daily Devotions to DREAM BOLD and LIVE BIGGER and join our online community BOLD DREAMERS—where faith, dreams, and divine connections come alive.