At some point or another, every Christian comes to a fork in the road, that place where serious decisions have to be made--decisions to either continue following Christ down the often trial-filled path and finish or to give up on the Christian life and quit. I’ve come to that place several times. As I’ve watched dear friends around me fall prey to the world and the devil, I’ve had to decide which course I would take. Would I follow them, or would I press on and keep serving God…even if it meant I was all alone? When I was crushed because of a crucial decision my parents made regarding my future, I had to choose between picking up the pieces and going on or becoming bitter and hard. God so graciously gives each one of us a choice--the ability to exercise our own free will. The question is, what will we do when we reach the crossroads? Will we decide for Christ, or will we choose for the world, the flesh, and the devil? And if we do decide for Christ, will we decide to be faithful and committed to the cause? Will we run the race to finish?
“Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” John 4:34
“But I have greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me.” John 5:36
These two verses were impressed upon my heart. There are two words in both those verses that have significant meaning. Jesus didn’t have to say them, but I believe He added them for emphasis, as an example to us, that we would know how we ought to run the race that lies before us. To finish.
Jesus Christ was born into this sinful world for one purpose--the saving of lost souls. So often in the Old Testament Jesus speaks of His Father’s work. Jesus had a ministry! The ministry of carrying out His Father’s will. What was His Father’s will? That none should perish but that all should come to repentance. This should be our purpose in life as well! When we see people as souls that will spend eternity in hell, we are just beginning to see as God sees.
Jesus Christ was born into this sinful world with one goal--the cross. The little baby born in a lowly manger came to live as a man, to experience the weakness of being human, to be tempted as we are (and yet without sin), and finally to suffer death by giving His life to save the human race. He was born to die. Jesus came to earth to do the work of His Father and then to finish on Calvary. He started to finish.
What if Jesus had decided not to finish? What if Jesus had chosen to be born, to heal the sick and forgive sins, but when it came time to die an excruciating death on the cross, He had suddenly allowed fear to overcome Him? What if He had chosen not to die? What if He had decided not to finish the work He came to do? We would be damned. We would be a people without hope.
What if we start and don’t finish? What if we begin our Christian life and old friends mock us and the pressure becomes too much to bear, and we decide not to finish? What happens when the lost see a Christian all fired up for the Lord and taking a stand against sin, and then suddenly they see him living his old life--with a beer in his hand and foul language spewing from his mouth? God’s name is as good as dirt. The Christian who starts and fails to finish is telling the world that Christ wasn’t enough to satisfy him. Upon entering Heaven, that Christian will bow his head with shame and wish to melt to the floor.
What happens when we fall into sin? What about those souls, just on the brink of salvation, but our ruined testimony causes them to harden their hearts towards the Lord? What if we start the Christian race and faint in the day of adversity, when the temptation seems too great to resist? 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” We are all tempted. None of us are perfect. God knoweth our frame, that we are but dust. We will trip up at times, and God knows that. Proverbs 24:16 says, “A just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again.” God has no sympathy for a person who wallows in sorrow and refuses to try again. When we falter and trip up and fall, God forgives us when we repent, and then He expects us to get up and go on. A baby, when first learning to walk, will fall on his face many times, but every time he falls, he pushes himself up on his wobbly little legs and attempts to try again…and again…and again. This is what God expects of us! He wants us to finish well!
What if we begin our ministry and things become too rough, and we decide not to finish? We leave the mission field in defeat or resign from the church staff. What kind of testimony is a quitting Christian? What happens to the lives we have touched along the way? What happens to the precious souls who are looking up to us? What if we should cause our brothers to fall by the wayside because of our lack of faithfulness to God? Proverbs 24:10 says, “If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.” “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” Galatians 6:9 “Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” Hebrews 10:35-39
God has given each of us a choice. Will we be a stumbling block or a stepping stone? Will we be faithful or will we fail? Will we start the race to finish?
As Jesus prayed to His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, He said, “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” (John 17:4) And then, as He hung on the cross, Jesus announced the fulfillment of His earthly ministry as He cried with a loud voice, “It is finished.” Jesus Christ had accomplished the will of His Father. From the cradle to the cross--He had reached His goal. Thus, Jesus is victoriously proclaimed “the author and finisher of our faith” in Hebrews 12:2. Praise God!!! Jesus finished!
Paul said in Acts 20:24, “But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.”
Paul had a goal--a goal to finish well, having completed the ministry that God gave him. And then, in 2 Timothy 4:7-8 Paul says, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
We live in evil days. We see wicked men coming to power and morals deteriorating at an alarmingly fast rate. The hearts of mankind are hard towards God, and many refuse to acknowledge His very existence. Christians are persecuted socially and/or physically for their beliefs. These aren’t easy days to be a Christian, and they are only going to get worse. Perhaps Christians feel that because the times we live in are so wicked, we are entitled to fail. If we don’t finish, we feel that we can blame it on the corrupt society in which we live. Is this any reason to quit? Are the days we live in all that much worse than Jesus’ day? We see false religion and the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. Jesus endured verbal attacks, and Paul was subject to physical torture for being a Christian. Paul said, “But none of these things move me.” What things failed to move him? In 2 Corinthians 11:24-27 Paul gives us a general picture of the abuse He suffered for Christ’s sake. “Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.” Still, through all this, we see that Paul was faithful! Paul finished! Can we, who have never suffered even half these things, do any less???
Very obviously, Paul did not have an easy life. So what kept him going? How did he endure until the end? He, like Jesus, constantly kept his eyes on the goal. For Jesus the goal was the cross, the redemption of mankind, and His reward was to be seated on the right hand of the throne of God. Look at Hebrews 12:2. “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
For Paul, the goal was to fight a good fight and to keep the faith, enduring until the end, and his reward was a crown of righteousness. Remember Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:7-8, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” Paul’s definition of finishing = fighting a good fight, having kept the faith to the end. Those who love Christ’s appearing are the Christians who refuse to finish before reaching the finish line…those who reject the world and live separated lives unto the Lord…those who are holding a Bible in their hands instead of a beer…those who are witnessing to their neighbors instead of joining them at the bar. To the Christians who love Christ’s appearing, there will be given a crown of righteousness. But there are conditions. We have to finish! Paul finished well because he kept his eyes on the goal--his Saviour and the awaiting crown and glory of Heaven.
So what is wrong with us today? Why are so many Christians dropping out of the race? Why do we see our fellow brothers and sisters quitting before reaching the finish line? Is Christ’s power any less today than it was last year or the year before or 100 years ago? Is the arm of His strength shortened that it cannot reach us? Is His grace insufficient? Have the storehouses of His mercy been exhausted? Is the course we trod any rougher now than it was in years gone by? Or, maybe we have become too accustomed to our lives of pleasure and are unwilling to carry our cross and follow Christ. Has our vision of the crown become blurred? Have Heaven’s golden portals faded with time? Perhaps…perhaps we have just lost sight of the goal.
We lose sight of our objective when we allow sin in our lives…when we take the throne instead of giving Christ His rightful place. 2 Corinthians 8:5-6 says, “And this they [the Corinthian Christians] did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God. Insomuch that we desired Titus, that as he had begun, so he would also finish in you the same grace also.” What we are missing today is self denial. Jesus was willing to die for us, but we won’t even live for Him!!! We aren’t willing to GIVE ourselves to Christ. We somehow get the foolish notion that we are running this earthly race for ourselves…for our own glory, not that of Christ’s. Therefore we fix our gaze on temporal pleasures instead of focusing on eternity, which ought to be our goal. It is God’s will that we give ourselves…that we surrender. Notice that Paul says when the Corinthian Christians surrendered themselves to the Lord, then Titus was able to finish the work he had begun. Church members help their pastor finish by cooperating with the Holy Spirit. By surrendering. We are running this race together, as a team. When one Christian is faithful, the others take courage. It’s works the other way as well. When one Christians is downcast or fails to finish, the others are deeply affected. We must press on together!!!
To those of us in the ministry, God has a special command in Colossians 4:17. “And say to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it.” Fulfill = accomplish, carry out, finish!!! Finish the ministry! Finish well! Complete the task God has entrusted to you! I love this verse! What a blessing!
Luke 14:28-30 talks about a man who began to build and didn’t finish what he started. “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.” Many Christians today are like the man who began to build and didn’t calculate the cost and effort he would need to put into his building. We plunge into whatever we are eager to attempt for God without the power of the Holy Spirit or the blessing of God. Then, when things become difficult, we wonder what happened, become bitter, and fail to finish. We should never underestimate how much it will cost us to live the Christian life and follow God wherever He leads. It could cost you your friends or family, your freedom, your homeland, or even your life. The price is great, but the eternal rewards are inconceivable. Christian, count the cost and then plunge in and build!!! Don’t quit halfway through! Don’t give any reason for friends, neighbors, or acquaintances to gaze at your unfinished work and mock the God you serve. Start to finish!
Earlier I said that I have come to the crossroads--the place of decision where I had to choose for God or the world. The Lord has brought me to some hard places, and I expect there are more to come. I’ve seen some of my dearest and most respected friends do things I never could have imagined. Now their lives are a nightmare. James 1:15 says, “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” How true it is! Sin is the only thing we should aim to finish (destroy) the second it starts.
Sin will take you further than you want to go.
It will keep you longer than you want to stay,
and it will cost you more than you want to pay.
My resolve to do right has grown stronger as I have seen the awful results of sinful living. The Lord is teaching me valuable lessons through the mistakes of others. At every crossroad I’ve come to so far, God has given me the strength to choose the right way. By His grace I will continue to run the race, pressing toward the goal. Quitting isn’t an option. I’ve started this race to finish.
Dear Christian, when you stand to give account of yourself to God, will you be able to answer truthfully with the words, “I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do”? Will you be able to say as Paul, “None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear to myself. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith”? Jesus finished for you by His death on the cross of Calvary. Will you finish for Him by living a crucified life? Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, left us an example, that we would know how we ought to run the race that lies before us. Not to quit. To finish.
Philippians 3:14
“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
Start to finish!
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