Finishing Well

Monday, October 2, 2023

I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding.  For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return.  May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God.  Philippians 1:9-11

Accomplishing anything worthwhile requires fidelity to what you are called to do.  Soldiers, public officials, and even husbands and wives take a public, solemn oath to discharge their duties faithfully.  There are stages to any undertaking, something like puzzle pieces fitting together.  These include thinking, (learning what the task entails), planning (how the task will be accomplished, the skills, people, supplies needed), and pulling the trigger, or acting on the plans made. 

This was Paul’s prayer for the Philippian believers.  He prayed for their knowledge of Jesus; he wanted them to know-Him, not just know about Him[1].  He wanted them to open their lives fully to Jesus, because Paul had experienced what he was telling them – when you are deeply-immersed in fellowship with Christ it changes your character, your inner being…you become a new creature!^{(see 2 Corinthians 5:17)}  

We become new because our old, sinful nature cannot worship or serve God.

It is this becoming new which drives us past the thinking/learning phase to acting on well-thought-out knowing and planning.  These puzzle parts interlock in such a way to bring meaning to the investment of time and energy.  And it is in the locking of such pieces of our lives that we find God’s creation and power.  Like the creator of a cosmic jigsaw puzzle, meant for others to reassemble, God gives us the box, and describes what the picture will look like once we’ve assembled it.  In faith, we think/pray/imagine how the pieces might fit; in faith we plan, laying pieces next to each other, keeping the finish line of God’s Kingdom in view; in faith we act, placing piece-after-piece together, witness here, worship there, generous giving to those in need, studying, fellowshipping, keeping Christ preeminent in all we do.  This is a holy life, dedicated to God.  This was Paul’s prayer for his beloved co-laborers at Philippi.  He wanted for them what he’d known and lived, and for which he was imprisoned at Rome.

Finishing well is the bottom line for puzzles, as it is for the Christian life.  Paul considered his puzzle a race.  He wanted to finish well, and that meant keeping faithful to Christ.  The last piece of Paul’s puzzle was to pass-along the faith to the saints.  I heard a story the other day about an automobile racing legend…long before NASCAR.  He was known for his team building the fastest cars.  In every start he would have the lead by a country mile.  But in his career, he never won a single race!  His cars were built to run like lightning, but, like lightning, their powerful speed was short-lived.  They were built for a sprint, not a marathon.

For You Today 

Where are you in the race?  Paul was in mid-life when it all got turned upside-down; he had to start over and run hard to catch-up with God’s plan for his life.  Paul is the premier empirical evidence that it isn’t if you started well, but rather if you finish well that counts in Heaven’s ledger.  Here’s Paul’s accounting:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful.  2 Timothy 4:7

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Title Image(s) courtesy of Pixabay.com                      

Images without citation are in public domain.  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©  

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[1] I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death,  Philippians 3:10

A Pastor's Prayer

[1]

Monday, October 2, 2017

I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding.  For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return.  May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God.  Philippians 1:9-11^(NLT)

Paul may have been an apostle and itinerant evangelist, but at his base, deep down, God had turned him into a pastor. 

That’s no small thing.  I often think about the pains the Lord has been through turning me into a pastor.

I’ve spent a lot of years, most of my life, trying to know what it means to be a good follower of Jesus, and a pastor who fulfills that calling.  What I’ve learned in all that time is that the measure of a pastor is tied more to his actions than his words. 

And I believe there are actually only two actions separating the genuine pastor from the false, both of which never make the evening news:

·       an act of care for one of the flock which is only known in heaven, and…

·       the pastor’s prayer life. 

This is easily seen in the life of Paul.  Check out the circumstances under which Paul wrote to his beloved church at Philippi.  Paul was in Prison, and the only item on his calendar was a date with the executioner.  In those last days before Paul’s retirement from earthly ministry he took the opportunity to utter this pastoral prayer.  He was lifting God’s people up before the throne of Heaven, asking God that their knowledge and understanding of God’s ways would increase, so the actions of their lives would reflect what Paul knew was stamped on their hearts – the pure, righteous character of Jesus Christ.  Like a father blessing his children, Paul wanted nothing more than a blossom of praise to God to be the result of having invested his life and ministry with the Philippian believers. 

In this prayer, and throughout the letter to the Philippian church, Paul asked nothing for himself in the way of creature comforts.  Paul was human, and therefore had needs like anyone else.  But the apostle had learned the art of contentment.  If he had much, he was satisfied; if his supply was sparse, he was satisfied.  If people hated him, he was humble; if they praised him, he passed on the praise to Christ[2].  The only matter of real importance was seeing others grow up in Christ, that they be filled with Christ’s character and God receiving all the glory from it.

This is the measure of a pastor’s heart.

And I wish I could bottle it and sprinkle it on anyone called to ministry. 

For You Today

Did you notice anything missing in what we’ve described as a “pastor’s prayer”? 

It should really be a “Christian’s prayer” – the call to living the Christian life is the same for every believer and follower of Jesus Christ – a life dedicated to loving and serving others, building-up the body, so that the fruit of our common salvation abounds and God the Father is praised!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy:  Pixabay.com

[2][2] Paul’s first letter to his protégé Timothy bears this out