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He Finishes What He Starts

One of my greatest fears is not finishing. No matter how impressive a start may be, it amounts to nothing if you never cross the finish line. In Luke 14:28 through 35, Jesus is seemingly shaking His head at people who start building a walk with God (a tower), but don’t count the cost of what it takes to finish. Unfinished towers are visible, and America is littered with embarrassing half­ structures that literally serve as “monuments of failure.” Yikes! I badly don’t want that to be my story.

But how do I know that although I'm killing it today, I won’t fall tomorrow? As I turn the corner on my first decade of walking with God, what hope do I have that I've got another one in me? The answer is simple—I don't. Truthfully, I don’t have another day in me.

But God has it ALL in Him!

It hasn’t been what "I have in me” on my own that has been sustaining me; it is the power of grace that flows from His ability to keep. Of course, that doesn't mean I'm not responsible for persevering, fighting, and obeying. Nor is it wrong to have a healthy fear of “unfinished towers” because this fear does keep me close to the builder. But it does mean that my efforts are not the basis of my future glorification—Christ is! If He has safely arrived into Heaven, so will I. He can’t lose my salvation, so it won’t ever be lost. My longing to be kept IS evidence of Him keeping me. Our high priest, Jesus, is praying for us, so we can rest assured that we will make it because He gets us there.

In the Luke 14:28 passage, Jesus is telling us to realize, consider, or "count" the weightiness of our decision to follow Him. But it doesn't stop there. He follows that verse with an example of an army that has no choice but to surrender to a larger army by making peace (Luke 14:31). We are that smaller army, and if we surrender, there will be peace with God. Surrender is letting go of the past, killing sin, and believing God’s promises. The surrendered don’t run out of gas because God is their fuel. He has yet to lose one who is truly His.