God Finishes What He Starts

You have heard someone say “God is good” and others responded “All the time!” Both those statements are true because that is God’s nature. Everything God does, has done, and ever will do, is always good!!

Our promise this week deals with God’s good work within us. That work, in a sense, had it’s beginning long before we took our first breath. In fact it started before He laid “the foundation of the world”(a) and it will continue until we have become like Jesus.(b) Everything God brings or permits into our lives is for that purpose.(c) While God’s good work on our behalf started from the dawn of creation, we personally began to respond to that work when we opened our hearts to Christ and accepted Him as our savior. That’s when He specifically began His good work in us.

God works in us through His Word, as we become familiar with it and apply it to our lives. He works in us through His Holy Spirit as we yield to His leading and promptings. We experience His work in us as we worship Him and as we develop loving relationships with fellow Christians. He works in us through the pleasant things He brings into our lives. But He also works in us through sad and painful experiences which He allows.(d) We welcome the pleasant and joyful times, but in reality it is in the hard times that we become more like Jesus if we respond to them in the right way.

“Sometimes life seems hard to bear;
Full of sorrow, trouble and woe
It’s then I have to remember
That it’s in the valleys I grow….

Thank you for the valleys, Lord
For this one thing I know
The mountaintops are glorious
But it’s in the valleys I grow!”(e)

Whatever life brings us, difficult as it may be, our God will never abandon us, He will continue His good work, which He has begun in us. Some people quit the job before it s completed – not so our God! Our God will continue His good work in us until it is finished. He carefully plans His work so He will have it done on the very day we see Jesus. With some of us he has more work to do than with others, but we can all trust Him to be right on schedule. What confidence that should give us, whether it is when He calls us home, or when He returns for His Church. When we see Him we shall be like Him!!



Let’s Pray –
Father, thank you for your faithful work in us, molding us into the image of your Son. We are so grateful that we can have full confidence that you will finish what you started! Grant us grace to completely trust you.
Amen



Footnotes:
(a) Ephesians 1:4, (b) 1John 3:2-3, (c) Romans 8:28, (d) James 1:2-4, (e) Mary N. Nelson



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