Must Finish Its Work

Monday, January 5, 2009, 9:06 a.m. – As I am writing this in my hand-written journal on the 5th of January, we are in Akron, Ohio. My aunt (one of my mom’s sisters) died on Saturday, Jan. 3rd. So, my husband and I drove to Akron for the funeral and to be there with family members during this difficult and sad time.

“I pray, Lord Jesus, that you will order up our week for us. Make the pathway plain and straight before us.”

Rick and I had prayed on Saturday about whether or not we should come up here to Akron, and the Lord spoke to each of us simultaneously through these hymn words:

My Trust / A. B. Simpson

Let me be faithful to my trust,
Telling the world the story;
Press on my heart the woe;
Put in my feet the go;
Let me be faithful to my trust
And use me for Thy glory.

“Lord, lead me and guide me today into all truth. Use me today, Lord, for your purposes and for your glory, to be a light shining in the darkness to a world in need of a Savior. Guard my heart and my mind in Christ Jesus and the words on my tongue. ‘May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight,
O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer’ (Ps. 19:14).”

The Lord has been speaking to me about not saying unkind or unnecessary information about the living and the dead, “So I pray, Lord Jesus, that you will stop me while the thought is still in my head even before it reaches my tongue, so that I can reject any unkind or unnecessary thoughts before they ever reach my tongue.”

I sense the Lord wants me to be in the book of James for a little while:

James 1:1-4: James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations:
Greetings.

Trials and Temptations
2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

• Consider it pure joy when you face trials
• The testing of your faith develops perseverance
• Perseverance must finish its work
• That you may be mature and complete

“Thank you, Jesus, for these words of encouragement. Thank you for these trails and this testing of my faith, because you are producing the changes in my heart that are necessary to make me a pure vessel that is being made useful for your service.”

Refiner’s Fire

Purify my heart,
let me be as gold and precious silver.
Purify my heart,
let me be as gold, pure gold.

Purify my heart,
cleanse me from within
and make me holy.
Purify my heart,
cleanse me from my sin, deep within.

Refiner's fire,
my heart's one desire
is to be holy;
set apart for You, Lord.
I choose to be holy;
set apart for You, my Master,
ready to do Your will.

I receive daily devotionals via e-mail from two different sources. One of them today was about perseverance and the other was about completeness in Christ.

Devotional Number One: Good morning and have a great day

"We will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Galatians 6:9 NIV

This year; persevere (1)

Perseverance means: 1) Succeeding because you're determined to, not because you're entitled to. Achievers don't sit back and wait for success because they think the world 'owes them.' No, if you're wise you'll ask God for direction, stand firm on the word He has given you, go forward and refuse to quit. You must adopt the attitude of the man who said, 'We are determined to win. We'll fight them until hell freezes over, and if we have to, we'll fight them on ice.' Recalling the trials he'd faced, Paul said: '"I started, and I'm going to finish. I've worked much harder, been jailed more often, beaten up more times than I can count, and at death's door...And that's not the half of it"' (2 Corinthians 11:23-28 TM). One word describes Paul; relentless.

2) Recognizing that life is not one long race, but many short ones in succession. Each task has its own challenges and each day its own events. You have to get out of bed the next morning and run again, but it's never exactly the same race. To be successful you must keep plugging away. It's said that Columbus faced incredible difficulties while sailing west in search of a passage to Asia. He encountered storms, experienced hunger, deprivation and extreme discouragement. The crews of his three ships were near mutiny. But his account of the journey says the same thing over and over: "Today, we sailed on." And his perseverance paid off. He didn't discover a fast route to the spice-rich Indies; instead he found new continents. The scriptural key to success is running the race. END

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Devotional Number Two: January 5, 2009
Good morning Sue!
Today's meditation is taken from:

The Infinite Supply of the Lord
by Chip Brogden

http://www.theschoolofchrist.org/articles/infinite.html

"You are complete in Him" (Colossians 2:10a).

The truth is that you are no more complete in Him today than you were when you first received Him, however long ago that may have been. And you will never be any more complete in Him than you are right now. You are complete in Him - of course, in yourself, you are far from complete, but that is not the issue. "In me" I am growing, learning, struggling, maturing. But the issue is not "me". The issue is, "not I, but Christ".

With less of me, there is more of Him. That is why we say that true spiritual growth is not more knowledge or increase of years. It is simply more of Christ and less of me. In time we will learn not to be discouraged or depressed should we run low on oil, bread, fish, or wine - or even the spiritual graces these earthly things are meant to represent. This is only the decreasing of Self which makes way for the increasing of Christ (John 3:30). Eventually we will view every weakness of ours as an opportunity to see Christ revealed as Strength. Every momentary "lack" is an opportunity to see Christ as Infinite Supply. For this is the Will and Purpose of God: that Christ may be All in All. END

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In Summary: I would like to comment here mainly on this last devotional and scripture reference in Colossians 2:10 which says, “You are complete in Him…” in comparison with the scripture in James 1:4 which says, “Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

One scripture suggests that at the moment we receive Christ that we are complete in Him, that is that all the fullness of Christ dwells within us. The other suggests that as we persevere in our Christian walk that a work must be finished in us so that we can be mature and complete, not lacking anything. What immediately came to my mind as I pondered this dilemma is how that we have been saved (Eph. 2:4-9), we are being saved (I Cor. 1:18; II Cor. 2:15) and we will be saved (Phil. 1:28; Heb. 9:28; I Pet. 1:5) when Jesus Christ returns for his bride.

Salvation, thus, is a process of the Christian life that will not be completed until Jesus returns for his bride, the church. In the same manner, we are complete in Him, we are being made complete and perseverance must finish its work so that we may be mature and complete. And, it is Christ who works in all and through all to accomplish his purposes in our lives in maturing us and in making us who he wants us to be. This is not something we can accomplish in and of ourselves. It is Christ in us the hope of glory!