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Times and seasons are in His hands, and He is the God who has made all things beautiful in its time. And it is true even when it comes to this season of prayer, when we wait upon the Lord in supplication, with thanksgiving, making His very word the primary thrust and substance of our petitions. And with this goal in mind, beginning to study the book of Philippians this day, will certainly be a joyous experience, for it is an epistle written by Paul in very unfavorable circumstances, and yet in the midst of it, he displays within him an attitude of joy and peace that transcends and belies the seeming hopelessness which was then his portion. Theologically it teaches sound doctrine therefore, concerning your approach towards the challenging times of your life, that require a right application of God’s truth in order to face it all joyfully and victoriously.
It is also the truth of God’s word, that the one who hungers and thirsts after righteousness would be satisfied. It is the promise of blessing from the Lord, embedded in His sermon on the mount, one that remains familiar and eternal, as it speaks into the heart of every child of God, in its simplicity and power. Therefore, as you embark on this, your spiritual journey, may He drive away all obstacles and hindrances that could come in your path, to hinder your progress, even as He begins a good work in you, to also sustain you in it, and bring it to a flourishing finish. It is why even the day of small beginnings is not to be trifled with or taken lightly, when it is the work of God in your life.
A good work :
God is good, and He has done all things well, even from the very beginning of creation. As narrated in the first two chapters of the book of Genesis, He created a world over which He could certify to say that it was good, and very good. But it was then that sin entered to corrupt and mar the perfect work of God, the repercussions of which is still being witnessed and experienced in the world that lies under the sway of the evil one. But then, it does not end in corruption and imperfection, for God gave His Own Son, as Savior and Redeemer, and in the book of Revelation, the culmination of the written word of God, it all ends well, as God makes everything brand new, good and perfect. He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, and everything in between. What He begins, He will carry on to completion, filling all things with all things, and the end of it will be well, for He does all things well, even as the gospel writer Mark has recorded, for He is the Head of all things. It is the same when He intervenes in your life too; your end will be well; and it is the promise that comes to you in the words of the apostle – Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you, will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. [Philippians 1:6] What He begins in you, He will also sustain, to bring it to a flourishing finish, is the essence of it. Yes, doubts may come, but even as you gain understanding of this truth, by meditating upon it, and studying the depths of it, that is illustrated in the scriptures as a whole, the assurance will come, and also abide and grow in you.
1.It is HE who has begun :
It is God who is the initiator of all good things. It is also the good work in you. The Lord’s words make it abundantly clear – ‘You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain’. [John 15:16] It is He who has chosen you; that you may be born at such a time, and such a place, culture and environment. It was His beginning, concerning you. And whatever He begins, He will surely complete, as He leads and sustains you every step of the way, from then on.
By grace and through faith :
It can also be clearly seen, that it all originates from Him. Grace makes the first move; His Hand is stretched forth to give; and faith is your positive response to it. God’s call upon your life, to be made His child, to fulfill His purpose for your life, is the picture of your salvation, the good work that He has begun in you. It is all about grace, the undeserved favor of God, and but for His sovereign intervention, you and I would never have sought Him for as the scripture clearly declares, there is none righteous, but all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. [Romans 1:3] You and I, and all of humanity, were dead in our transgressions and sins, having in us, Adam, the first man’s fallen, sinful nature, and desperately needing redemption. But, what can a dead man do to raise himself? Absolutely nothing.
The psalmist captures it well, by confessing in revelation knowledge, the truth of having been dependent upon God, even from his mother’s womb. [Psalm 22:9,10] And, not being consumed, because of the Lord’s great mercies, is what the prophet Jeremiah testifies to, in the lives of God’s chosen people. [Lamentations 3:22] Therefore, having been made righteous by grace and through faith, you will not be consumed, or suffer harm, for, He is the unchanging God, who remains the same, yesterday, today and forever. And the righteous shall live by faith, declares the word of God that is settled forever in the heavens. Sin separates you from God, but salvation reconciles you with God, to bask in His unending and unchanging love.
God is love :
This may be a phrase that is used very casually and loosely these days, but truly plumbing the depths of the everlasting love of the God who is love, whose love for you remains unchanged forever will radically transform you! It is why, He needs to be the beginning, the opening of all things in your life.
No fear in love :
God’s perfect love drives away fear [1 John 4:18,19] Fear, when tolerated, will alter your perception, contaminate your faith. So, when something bad happens in your life, the one doubt that the devil will immediately bring into your mind, is that God does not love you, or has withdrawn his love or maybe loves you a little less than before, because of something that you have said or done. But the truth is not so. God’s love is everlasting. It is one that has no beginning or end, and remains unchanged in its nature, forever. And unless you experience His love, you will not know what true love is. For the central truth of the Bible, is about God’s love for the world. [John 3:16] And by this we know what love is, the apostle later says, as he talks about Christ laying down His life on the Cross for the sins of the whole world. [1 John 3:16] In the last days, the love of most people will grow cold, is the specific warning from God in His word. But with Him though, the God who is love, it is a different equation; for you love Him, because He first loved you. In fact, you will know what love is, only when you know and experience the love of God who has given His life for you in your life. And, it is then that you will be able to love others, to relate rightly with them.
And then, that nothing can ever separate you from it, is the bold confession that can be yours too, much like apostle Paul’s. For, what he enumerates in his lengthy list would surely more than cover, all that can ever arise in life to trouble any person! [Romans 8:35-39] You will rise up instead, through it all, to be more than a conqueror, through Him who has loved you with an everlasting love. It is the reason why He needs to begin a good thing in your life. And, flowing from it, would be its continuity too. For, when the good work is what He has begun in your life, it will not hinge purely on your self effort, but rather, you would be working out what He has already worked within you. Amy Carmichael, the missionary, who worked out what God had purposed for her life in order to serve Him, had this to say when she was asked about the future of what she had established for the glory of God, when she was no longer around – ‘If it is from God, it will be there until He comes’! It is how He begins the good work in your life also, and why He needs to be the initiator.
The call of Abraham illustrates it well :
‘I will surely bless you … Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who bore you; For I called him alone and blessed him and increased him. [Isaiah 51:2] It is what the Lord Almighty spoke to His chosen people, that is you and I also today, for Abraham is now our father of faith. God’s very first conversation with him, cut right through to the heart of the matter, which was the promise of blessing. Abraham was then already seventy five years old; but they are now referred to as the seventy five insignificant years. For, the moment God began to intervene in his life, it began to gain significance, to be ultimately recorded in the scriptures, as he participated in the plans and purposes of God. Through it all the vital lesson that you and I learn is that it is the Father who calls a person. It is always God who begins the good work. And unless He gives, you cannot receive. No one can come to Me unless the Father draws him to Me’. are the Lord’s words to His disciples. [John 6:44] And anyone who comes to Me , I will in no way reject’, is also His assurance. [John 3:27] He has chosen you and called you, even before you were born. And at the right time He has drawn you to Him in love. And the God who drew you to Him will never let go of you!
Faith cannot operate unless grace gives it to you. And it is why you can gain confidence by believing in the word of God that declares that you are already blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. [Ephesians 1:3] He has already blessed you with a specific word that meets your need, a word that has within it the potential of manifesting the fruit or the answer that you are awaiting, as you continue to cherish, nurture and water it without giving up on it. It is a truth that can be further rooted and built up in the promise of God that declares, He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, will He not together with Him freely give us all things? [Romans 8:32] And He who begins the good work in you, does not stop watching over it, or take His hands of it, as the process continues in you. He is never a remote spectator, just watching you from above.
2. It is He who sustains the good work :
The Son is the radiance of God’s glory, and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After providing purification for sins, He is seated at the right hand of the Father. [Hebrews 1:3] He is seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding for you continually. What a powerfully comforting thought it can be, as you take it to heart! And it is how He sustains you, from your mother’s womb, all through your life. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He; He who will sustain you; I have made you, and I will carry you; I will sustain you, and I will rescue you. [Isaiah 46:4] The life of Peter, stands as a testimony to what can happen in your life too, because of His divine intervention. ‘And when you have returned to Me…’ Simon, Simon, indeed Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail. And when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren’. [Luke 22:31,32] When the Lord is interceding for you, there can be no question of doubt; it is just a question of time! ‘When you have returned’, He says to Simon Peter, and not ‘if you return to Me’. For, concerning Peter’s confession earlier about Jesus being the Messiah, the Lord declared that it was the rock, the revelation truth on which He was going to build His church, had already then prophesied that the gates of hell shall not overcome it. [Matthew 16:18]
Yes, problems can come to you as a Christian, they may even be more intense, but through it all, you can take heart, and not give up, as you trust and rest in His promise to know that He has overcome the world, and He who is in you is greater than he that is in the world. And in what He begins in you, He will not be the chief guest, whose presence is required only on the opening day of the new venture, show room or enterprise, to inaugurate and felicitate, but will be there with you and never leave you. God’s providential care of Jacob, the patriarch, through all the seasons of his life, portrays well, the loving care of the God who sustains you, to develop you and lead you forward, holding you securely, to never let you go. He found him in a desert land, and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him; He kept him as the apple of His eye. [Deuteronomy 32:10]
Jacob was called, chosen by God, and yet his life for very many years was marked by an absence of inner rest, though he was materially wealthy. But the Lord was with him continually to bring him out of his life of turmoil at His appointed time. And Jacob at that point of his life was able to acknowledge and also experience the presence of God as he said as he left his father in law’s abode, that but for the God of his father Isaac being with him, he would have been sent away empty handed, instead of leaving with two companies!
It is the same God whom you serve too. And your hand may be empty now, but it will not stay empty, as He leads and sustains you towards a glorious destiny. For it is He who has begun the good work in you, and it is He who sustains you; and not by remote control, but by His ever abiding presence with you. You may be perplexed right now, wondering why some things have happened to you, and why there are troublesome enemies coming against you, when you are the child of God. Gideon’s plight is something that you and I can often identify with and understand. It was in fear that he was threshing grain, hidden in the wine press, when God, the Jehovah Shalom found him to call him a ‘mighty warrior’, and proceeded to make him one, with the promise of His own presence. ‘Go in the strength you have’, was not a blessed send off, by God, but as Gideon persisted became a blessing accompanied with the assurance of His presence. [Judges 6:11-16] It was the knowledge and powerful truth that empowered Gideon, as marching together with God, he led God’s people to victory. In your life, He has not saved you, to then stand apart from you to say, ‘See you in heaven’! He is with you, holding your hand and leading you, in good times and bad, in the mountaintop and in the valley, dark and deep. You need not fear any evil. And the question of ‘why Lord’, that so often arises in you, at the pain that comes in life, seemingly for no reason at all, can be countered by the question, ‘so what?’, to stand together with God and see enemies melt like wax before Him!
The fire and the cloud :
It was the visible presence of God that led the Israelites in the old covenant, in their wilderness journey, the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire that gave light in their path at night. [Nehemiah 9:12] But living now in the new covenant, the presence of God is in you, and you walk by faith and not by sight. It is what Christian life is all about. He is walking with you, holding your hand, and matching your pace. For, you are His child. His grip is stronger, and He will not let go of you, and He will catch you, when you stumble. It is how He leads you forward, to where He wants you to be, your ultimate divine destiny that He has already planned and purposed for you, one which cannot be thwarted.
3. It is He who has accomplished it :
Lord, you will establish peace for us, For you have also done all our works in us. [Isaiah 26:12] What He has begun in you, the good work is something that He is going to carry forward in you, to bring it all to a flourishing finish.
The flourishing finish :
And it is not about coming to an end. On the contrary, it is the very opposite, an ever increasing transformation from glory to glory. The Lord will perfect all that concerns you, by improving and developing you, and removing all lack from within you. And when you finally see Him face to face, you will be exactly as He is, in a wondrously glorious perfection. It is an ongoing process, and it is happening even now within you, a sequence that lifts you up step by step as a chosen child of God, for He loves you with an everlasting love.
The sequence :
Moreover, whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. [Romans 8:30] He has begun – He has called – He has justified, made you righteous. And having already accomplished the above in your life, He will certainly go on to glorify you. For, He is the God of completion, who never leaves anything half done and incomplete. He will never let the righteous be put to shame, but will bring it all to a flourishing finish, by glorifying you.
The water and the word :
That He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of the water by the word. [Ephesians 5:26] It is how He glorifies you – a process of cleansing that happens in you through the Spirit and the word of God, even what is happening right now, as you are hearing God’s word. It is a sanctification that will one day lead to perfection, and to this end the Lord has already offered Himself, and therefore it will certainly happen.
Though now you may have imperfections :
The Lord Himself will keep you from stumbling, to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. [Jude 24] You may not be able to believe it yourself, but you will be a glorious church before Christ Jesus, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but holy and without any blemish. And when the Lord displays you before the Father, He will never reject you, for you have already been accepted, and He is working in you, having begun a good work. Therefore, in prayer and worship, as you lift up your hands unto God, the Father, giving thanks unto Him, for the good work that He has already begun in you, may He proceed to lead you, and may He Himself bring to perfection, and establish all that concerns you. May He cause your face to shine with the radiance of His glory, in the coming days, as you wait upon His word in prayer, to be blessed by His goodness and unending love. In the Name of Christ Jesus Amen.
