I came across a note that I had shared on my YouVersion app back in May 2011, and decided to publish it on my platform. It encouraged me to keep on keeping on, and I hope it does the same for you! Be Kind.
“Okay, so last week at Bible study, Pastor mentioned that everything you were born to do in life comes down to one word: ‘finish.’ In other words, finish what you started.
As I read my notes, I think to myself, Have I really finished what I started? And I can honestly say, no, I haven’t.
When I say I haven’t finished what I started, I’m not talking about the ‘little’ things in life, such as education, paying off a house, or going through the different trimesters for an individual who is in the process of giving birth to a child. Now, when I use the word ‘little,’ I am not using it in the sense that those things aren’t important—but when I compare them to what I’m about to compare them to, they really are that ‘little.’
What I started is deeper than the little things in life that I have mentioned. What I’ve started is making the decision to build a consistent relationship with God and allowing myself to do the things of God—doing God’s will in order for me to fulfill the purpose He has for me.
But it’s a ‘Process’ — a series of actions taken towards achieving a particular end. We all want to make it to heaven, right? That means there are mandatory steps we need to take in order to get there. Once we familiarize ourselves with these steps, we need to start to make ‘Progress’ — forward movement towards a destination, and that destination is to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. That’s when you have truly finished what you have started.
No one said it was going to be easy. Pastor mentioned that if there is anything the enemy hates, it’s a finisher, and he will do anything in his power to prevent us, as followers of Christ, from finishing what we have started. In this case, it’s our walk with Christ to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
We need to understand that if we are going to be followers of Christ, there is some ‘stuff’ we are going to go through—in other words, ‘obstacles.’ These obstacles can come in the form of temptation, or even the enemy making us feel ‘unworthy,’ which makes it feel impossible for us to finish what we have started.
The obstacles Jesus went through weren’t easy, but He started an assignment which His Father in Heaven sent Him to do and He completed (finished) it through the grace of God.
Just like any race, there is a ‘start’ and a ‘finish,’ and when the runner gets to the finish line, there is usually a ribbon at the end of the race, which symbolizes that he or she has completed the race once they run through it. That same concept applies to us as followers of Christ. The gate symbolizes the finish line, but to determine if we actually finished the race, we have to enter through the gate—that’s when we have reached our final destination. Then, we can also declare, just like Jesus did, ‘It is finished.’
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