I’m continuing the series on: How God Sees Us, which commenced here.
“Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6
What God begins, He completes. But sometimes we forget or perhaps don’t quite understand that we are God’s projects. Perhaps we get a bit impatient with God’s timetable and we feel like we’ve been put on the shelf, or in the too-hard basket. But perhaps the truth is God is waiting for us, like he waited for the disciples, to stop straining at the oars so he can step in and get us to the other side. In Mark 6 we read:
“Later that night … He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. Shortly before dawn he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost … Immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” Mark 6:47-50
If we think getting to the other side is up to us, that’s life is about how hard we row, or about good we look while we do it, we may never get there. Even today Jesus will pass by the self-sufficient. Many of the difficult experiences God puts us through are to teach that self-sufficiency is not enough. We cannot complete what God has began. We need to remember it was God who started the good work in our life and because he started it, we know he is going to complete it.
Colossians 2:6 says: “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him.”
The Living Bible puts it this way: “And now just as you trusted Christ to save you, trust him, too, for each day’s problems; live in vital union with him.” Colossians 2:6 (LB).
We begin our Christian lives by trusting God to save us. The thing that changed our behaviour in the first place was focusing on what Christ had done for us, not focusing on our own efforts. We are to continue our Christian walk the same way as we started, by remembering it is Jesus who does the work. This is good news because we are all works in progress. God has not finished with any of us yet! But we can trust him to finish what he starts.
Many of us, don’t always finish what we start. I was part of a ladies’ craft group once which was called, the UFO’s which stood for unfinished objects. We would gather one afternoon a week and bring along our unfinished projects and many projects actually got finished.
God began a good work in us and he will carry on, despite the delays and detours, to bring it to completion.
