Life: Finish well. It’s not how you start, but how you finish.

Aug 8, 2012Find joy today, Heal from the past

I’ve been reading the adventures of the Israelites lately and once again bumped into my friend King Asa of Judah. He started his reign well. He even deposed his grandmother because she was naughty! He tore down altars to Baal. Basically, he rocked. And wars ceased. “And there was no more war until the thirty-fifth year of Asa’s reign” (2 Chronicles 15:19).

But then something wonky happened. 

Asa got scared.

King Baasha of Israel was going to attack. Instead of seeking the Lord, Asa made a treaty with Aram. He looted the treasuries of the temple to do so. Not good.

So, Hanani the Seer (cool name!) came to him and told him what’s what. Asa’s response? Send him to prison. And he also started oppressing his own people.

Here is Asa’s end: In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa became diseased in his feet. His disease was severe, yet even in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but the physicians” (2 Chronicles 16:12).

Asa started beautifully. But he did not end well.

This is my fear. Is it yours? We start our lives in Jesus with great faith, believing Him for mountains, only to find a molehill confronting us, causing us to run to anything but Jesus.

It matters how we finish.

It matters that we don’t give up late in life.

Our lives shouldn’t be deteriorating the older we get. On the contrary, we should be growing more and more and more like Jesus.

I think some of us just get plain tired of the struggle. We see others seemingly able to manage life without Jesus, so we balk and give up.

Please don’t.

Make a holy determination that your last days on earth will be more dynamic and faith-filled than the first steps you walked with Jesus. With Him, you can move both mountains and molehills.

Q4u: Who in your life exemplifies finishing well? Who has been a cautionary tale for you?

 

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