Welcome to this Come to Jesus Daily devotional. For the near future, we put our Luke series on pause as we have some stand-alone summer devotionals. I hope you find them helpful.
‘Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.’ (Philippians 1:6)
Lesson: Our becoming Christians was the beginning of God’s work and our final glorification is the completion of His work in us.
Yesterday, we saw how the Holy Spirit gives us the freedom to come to know Jesus and then to become more like Him. Today’s verse reinforces this wonderful idea; If we are Christians it’s because God has begun a work in us at conversion that He will be faithful to complete at our final resurrection.
Being confident
How can we be confident that God will accept us into heaven and raise us at the end? Surely, we may say, I make too many mistakes. How can I be sure that I’ll be able to remain faithful to Jesus…? It’s important to see our salvation as God taking hold and keeping hold of us rather than our clinging on to Him. The question is not, can I be strong enough? The question is: Is God faithful and strong enough for me? And you know the answer! (See John 10:27-30).
He began a good work in us
The good work that He has begun is in giving us new birth in Christ. He, by the Spirit, moved our hearts to understand and trust in the death and resurrection of Jesus. We have been born again. We are ‘a new creation’! This is a good work that only God could have done.
He will complete His work in us on the ‘day of Christ’.
Rather like a sapling that has just emerged from an acorn, we are just emerging into the full-grown glory that will be ours when Jesus comes again. The resurrection life of Christ that is in us now in all of our imperfections, is the same power that is continuing to work in us through this life and will raise us when Jesus comes again. In His famous teaching on the nature of the resurrection, Paul writes:
‘And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man [Adam], so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man [Jesus]. Listen, I tell you a mystery: we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.’ (1 Corinthians 15:49, 51-52)
Response
Our becoming Christians was the beginning of God’s work and our final glorification is the completion of His work in us.
Perhaps a good response might be to meditate on the imagery of the potter from this text from Jeremiah. It’s important that we learn to trust in the good plans of our potter:
‘Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said, ‘Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?’ declares the Lord. ‘Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.’ (Jeremiah 18:5-6)
COMMUNITY GROUP NOTES AND STUDY
Until September I'll not be producing a group study. However, if you meet with your group why not simply use one of the devotionals as a basis for your discussion together?
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