Daily Manna · Day 365 · December 31
He Will Finish the Work
“He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”
What would you need to be able to say about this year before you would call it a good one?
The last week of a year invites a review, and yours may not be flattering. The same temper is still there. The habit you gave up in January came back by March. Your prayer life started well and then thinned out without your ever deciding to let it. You would like to report growth, but mostly you can report that you survived.
Paul wrote this letter from prison, and the two verbs he chooses make a matched pair: "begun" and "perform." One means to start a work, and the other means to carry it all the way through to the end. Paul is sure that God does not leave this kind of work half done. And notice that he does not set the deadline where you would set it. The finish line is not this year or even this decade. It is "the day of Jesus Christ."
Paul's confidence rests on evidence, and it is worth seeing that before you brush it off as a pep talk. He gives his evidence in the verse before: "your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now." He is looking at people who kept showing up and kept sending him help while he was in chains. From that, he reasons back to who must be at work in them. They had simply kept going, and Paul counted that as proof of God's work. So when all you can report is survival, that is evidence too.
The work in you is meant to look unfinished tonight, because it is unfinished. The One judging it is the One who started it, and He has not walked off the job.
He is not behind schedule. You have been measuring by your calendar, and He is working to His, which ends at "the day of Jesus Christ."
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 365 is All the Days (Matthew 28:20).