Well, you know, a lot of believers do
not finish well.
We look around and there's some real tragedies,
but if you look in the scriptures at
Paul in 2 Timothy at the end, he
says to Timothy, Timothy, I can look back
without shame.
I can look at the present without apology,
and I can look at the future without
fear, because he knew who he was in
Christ.
And so we've got to keep Christ.
I will set the Lord before me.
I have set you before my face.
And we look away from this unto Jesus.
We aren't pressured by the world.
We look to him, the author and the
perfecter, the finisher of our faith.
So it's faith from him as a gift.
Faith is always now.
It's not just later.
Faith is now faith is.
Substance is evidence of things hoped for.
It's the proof of the unseen.
And so faith is always his.
I mean, victory is always from him.
It's not later.
It's now and it's always his.
So I would say when it comes to
finishing well, that I've got to realize that
my life when I came to Christ ended,
it wasn't just mended.
So my expectation is from him.
Now, these are easy to say, but I
know that he who began this good work
in me and who loved me when I
was really, truly, even more unlovable consciously, because
I didn't care about him.
I didn't, I was not plugged in.
Once he changes your heart and gives you
a new spirit, a new heart and puts
his spirit within you and puts his word
in you and dazzles you with his glory
and honor, it's easier.
But to finish well is to keep your
eyes on him.
Let this one thing, this one thing I
do, forgetting the past, I press in.
Rich young ruler, one thing is needful.
He's talking about the Lord Jesus to the
rich young ruler.
He had everything else.
He laid everything else down, he said, but
he couldn't lay down the idol of his
heart.
So I would say to myself, if I
want to finish well, I keep my eyes
on him and don't dream up your own
finishes, but let his finish be what he
has.
I don't think Stephen necessarily thought that he'd
be stoned.
I mean, he was one of the finest
men in the church in act seven and
he's there before all the Pharisees and there
he gives one of the greatest messages in
the word of God, rehearsing from beginning to
end the whole coming of the Messiah.
And then he, he rebukes the Pharisees and
I don't know if he expected to be
stoned or not, but remember Jesus had gone
to be sitting on the right hand of
the father.
It says over and over in the new
testament, it quotes that from Psalm 110, sitting
at the right hand of the father.
But when Stephen looked up to the Lord,
he saw Jesus standing as if to say,
this is my, this is the first fruit.
This is what I'm after.
A person who loves truth and life in
me more than his own safety.
And as he faded into obscurity, I don't
think Stephen ever had any idea that there
was a young man watching this, who was
holding the clothes of the people throwing the
rocks, who would soon be knocked off his
high horse.
If he was on a horse, if he's
walking, I don't know, but Paul would fall
at the dirt and see this same Jesus
that Stephen surely didn't know.
And we don't know.
You don't know how many heartbeats you have
left.
You don't know what situation you'll be in,
but you know what, if it's the Lord
that leads us, it's going to be well
with my soul.
So I would say to myself, I intend
to finish well, not because I intend to,
but because he who sought me and bought
me and saved me and fill me and
wants to use me despite this stubborn hardness
that we all have, he's going to perfect
that, which concerns me.
And he is able to present me, not
just blameless like I am now, but faultless,
says Jude, faultless in that day.
Hallelujah.