Are you ever going to grow up?

I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.  Philippians 1:6

According to Paul, the answer is yes.  And he is sure of it.  It’s a promise.  God started our whole faith journey, and He will continue to work to bring us to a good finish.  That doesn’t mean that we sit back and do nothing.  In Philippians 1:9-10 Paul prayed that their love would grow and that they would live out what is excellent so that they would be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.  It is our job to obey and to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling” as Philippians 2:12.

There is this give and take between what we do to grow complete in our faith and between what God does.  God initiated it, according John 6:44: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.”  And it is God who will bring our faith to the end, according to Jude 24: “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy.”

God will bring our faith to its completion at the day of Jesus Christ, which is the day of His return to this earth to set up His millennial kingdom.  1 John 3:2 tells us, “we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.”  If we don’t progress in our Christian growth through our obedience, Christian disciplines and the fulfillment of what part we play in God’s kingdom, we will answer for it on that day.

What we do with what God has given to us is up to us, and we will be held accountable for it and given rewards. But it is God who gets us to the finish line.  Listen to 1 Corinthians 1:7-9, “as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and 1 Thessalonians 5:24, “He who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it.”

You are a work in progress.  You can rejoice when you see God working His love, patience, faith and encouragement through you, because that is a sign that you are indeed one of His.  John 15:5 echoes, “Apart from Me you can do nothing.”  You can’t produce genuine change and fruit apart from a real relationship with Jesus, based on faith.  When you see it, give God the glory because He did it in and through you–don’t beat your own chest.

If you see Jesus at work in and through you, rejoice that you are one of His and that you’re growing up.  And know that He will bring you across the finish line for that great day of Jesus’ returning!