God’s not finished with Me Yet!

I wish my testimony was one of unwavering faith and
steadiness.  I wish that you could talk
to anyone who knew me during the early years of my life and they would tell you
about my commitment to the Gospel and my obvious love for Jesus.  Sadly, I didn’t respond to God’s call on my life until 1996.  From that time on there are many people who would tell you of my love for
Jesus and my commitment to the Gospel.
But many who knew me during the earlier years of my life wouldn’t, because they’ve seen me fall into sin and act
prideful.

In fact, I’d bet that many of us are this way.  We wish that we could have another chance at
past situations or seasons.  These were
my thoughts prior to writing this.
Pretty grim way to spend an afternoon, right?   But here was God’s answer to my anxiety and
self-disappointment, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who
began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”
(Philippians 1:6)

I’m not finished, He is still molding and shaping me, and
conforming me to Jesus’ likeness.  Romans
8:29 tell us, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to
be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among
many brothers.”

In 2 Corinthians 3:18, the apostle Paul reminds us that we Christians, who
anticipate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His image.  He said, “But we all, with unveiled face
beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the
same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”  Too
often, we use the fact that we are struggling with something God is doing in
our lives as an excuse for our behavior.

As I understand it, this is a work which begins at the moment we confess
Jesus as Savior and submit to His Lordship of our lives, and is only
completed when we meet Him face to face.
Until that day the Lord is working on us, in us, and through us, making
us more like Himself.

I can’t help but think that, with me at least, the Lord has quite a job on His
hands!  I take comfort in the assurance
from scripture that nothing is too difficult for God, and also from the verse
we began with, which says that He will complete the work He has started.

As the Lord prepares us for an eternity with Him, I sometimes
wonder if it makes things more difficult for Him and for us, when we are
unwilling to surrender to His way, His word, and His will.  It’s at these times of struggle that we are
more likely to behave in an ungodly way.
It is then that we may try to excuse ourselves with “I am a work in
progress.”  The fact is, that we are
all under the hand of God in that respect, and none of us are a finished work!

When work is carried out on a street, or in a house, a lot is done (or should
be) to make the site and surrounding area safe for those doing the work and for
those passing by.  When we are aware that
the Lord is dealing with an issue in our lives and we are struggling with it,
rather than lashing out, hurting and endangering others in the process, we
ought to ask the Lord for His grace, and the power and protection of His
Spirit, to help us handle the situation in a Godly way.

Even
with our lives surrendered to God, we’re still going to make mistakes.  And when we mess up, we need to humbly come
before God and allow Him to lead us once again.