Completion in Jesus

Wouldn’t you have liked to have a Paul writing you with encouragements like this?

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. ¹

Are you linked with someone else who is an encourager of you and honestly appreciates your partnership with them in the LORD. It is a relationship to be cherished and nurtured and reciprocated. Many of us struggle to grow in relationship both with the LORD and with fellow disciples for we see ourselves as not measuring up to the possibilities inherent in the LORD. But, Paul follows up with the growth factor:

And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. ²

Yes, we are not what we will be when God’s work is completed in us but we can be assured that ‘He who began a good work in us will bring it to completion’ in Jesus, that we are in process and that completion is coming, an ‘already, not yet’ certainty. If our commitment is to be in the image of Jesus, to live in the relationship that the LORD makes possible, He will complete what began when we committed over our life to Him. The ‘completion’ is not your doing but is enabled, empowered and enhanced by the work of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you.

Paul then closes this part of the salutation with appreciation for the disciples’ mutual encouragement of him,

It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. ³

Be willing to receive the encouragement of other believers and to be an encouragement to those whose life you may touch.