Finish Strong

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 16th of October, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We go to 1 Corinthians 10:12 out of the New King James Version:

”Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”

We’ve got to be so careful how we’re standing. Jesus said that harlots, prostitutes, tax collectors and thieves would enter in first before the religious churchgoers who started so well but finished so poorly. We think of Mary Magdalene. She was a woman of ill repute, Jesus drove seven demons out of her, and yet she became His most faithful handmaiden. Zacchaeus, Chief of all tax collectors, an absolute rogue, yet when he met with the King his life was changed instantly, forever. 

Early this morning, I was reading the account that Jesus told the people.

He said: A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go, work today in my vineyard.’ He answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he regretted it and went. Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?”
They said to Him, “The first.” 
Matthew 21:28-31. 

I remember as a brand-new Christian, I think I had known the Lord for three months, I was so on fire for God. What do they say? “You need to lock a new Christian up for 6 months because he is like a bull in a china shop!" But rather have that fire, and that zeal, and that love and that excitement for Christ, than to just carry on doing the old thing. I had the privilege of preaching in our little church in Greytown for the first time ever. I was so excited, I was in a cold sweat, standing in the vestry behind the building, and the elders put their hands on me and were praying for me, and one old lay preacher, after they had finished praying said, “Son, get in there and preach because I have done my bit.”  As a brand-new Christian, three months old in the Lord, I couldn’t understand what he was saying. How could you ever do your bit? How can you ever say, “I have done enough for the blood that Jesus shed on the Cross of Calvary for your sins?" I was very devastated, I have never forgotten that. We need to be so careful that we finish strong, on fire for the Lord and not taper off and say, “I have done my bit.” That is what happened to the son who said, “I will go” and then he didn’t go.

Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day,
Goodbye.