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Pastor Tim's Blog

Friday, January 04, 2013

 

God is a finisher

In baseball, if the pitcher who throws the first pitch of the game is the same guy who throws the last pitch of the game, it’s called a complete game. Today, that hardly ever happens. Last season, Justin Verlander led the Major Leagues in complete games with seven. However, a hundred years ago it was a different story. Usually, the same pitcher would start and complete a game. In 1904, Jack Taylor of the Cubs set a major league record by pitching 39 consecutive complete games. Taylor actually threw 187 consecutive complete games between June 1901 and August 1906, without being “relieved”. Back in the day, if you started a game you were expected to finish the game.

Life is not just about starting well, it’s about finishing well. Have you ever started something and quit and then looked back on it and wished you had finished? Perhaps you started working on a degree but education is hard so you bailed out. Or you take music lessons or an art class but it gets difficult so you quit. Or you volunteer someplace but it’s like swimming upstream so you drop out. You look back on it and say, “Man, I wish I would have handled that differently.”
Here’s some good news. God is a finisher. He starts the pitch in us and he completes the game with us.

Philippians 1:6 – “I am confident of this, that he who began the good work in you will carry it out to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (NIV).

God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears. (The Message).

I like that – God will keep at it. God won’t quit. God will finish. Let's look at some important words from this verse.

1) HE - or God (He's always the most important, right?). It does not say you begin the work and you complete the work. God begins the work in you (salvation) and God will finish the work in you (glorification).

2) BEGAN - “He who begins the work” is important as well. What does that mean? It means that God isn’t finished yet. It means that you are a work in progress. It means that the story isn’t finished yet. It means that God is still pitching and the game isn’t over. I love that. It’s not over until God says it’s over!

3) YOU -  this verse is personal. “He who began the good work in you.” God is doing something special in you. God is not just doing something special in the Nation of Israel, or in Jesus, or in nature or in the Philippians; God is doing something special in you. Let that sink in. God will be faithful to complete His work in you. Do you believe Him? God only pitches complete games. He needs no relief. No calls to the bullpen. What God starts, God is faithful to finish.

So don’t quit. Don’t throw in the towel. Keep looking up. God’s got the ball and He will complete the game. God is faithful! God is a finisher!





# posted by Pastor Tim @ 9:40 AM
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