MANY LIVE WELL INTENTIONED LIVES
FINISHING WELL is about BEHAVIOR. It’s about a life that seeks alignment with Christ. It involves translating what we say and know to be true, into daily life, and an ongoing lifestyle.
Watch a CLIP that is so powerful that you will look right past the sub-titles:
This new BLOG SERIES seeks to better define the phrase FINISHING WELL, as well as examine those issues that hold a Christ-follower back from FINISHING WELL, and the behaviors that help contribute to a life that FINISHES WELL.
BLOG #1: WHAT’S THE GOAL?
How do we define FINISHING WELL as it relates to the life of a Christ-follower? Three descriptors help provide greater definition to what it means to finish well.
(1) Christ-followers who FINISH WELL are those who are more in love with Jesus, at the end, then in the beginning. There is an ongoing, growing, intimacy with Christ that translates into a life sourced from something way beyond duty and responsibility.
(2) Christ-followers who FINISH WELL are more passionate and aligned with Christ’s mission at the end, than in the beginning. Christ and His mission is their focus, as opposed to scripting out their own life, based own their own dreams. They realize that “their story” is only part of the much bigger, grand narrative. What brings purpose and fulfillment to their lives is when they live for His story.
(3) Christ-followers who FINISH WELL are more sacrificial of their time, talent and treasure at the end then in the beginning. What they have, what they know, what they learned, is wrapped up in Christ, not the infatuations of the culture. They choose NOT to retire, but invest what they have into others, and greater Kingdom expansion.
MYTHS about FINISHING WELL
(1) Christ-followers who FINISH WELL begin to focus on the topic when they enter the end-game.
Wrong! To finish well at the end, means to start well at the beginning. It’s about cultivating key, core behaviors early on, that help withstand the challenges. Starting well facilitates finishing well.
(2) FINISHING WELL means that an individual has achieved some form of success, notoriety status or name that others would want to follow or model.
Wrong! FINISHING WELL is about obedience. Today, we are educated way beyond our levels of obedience. They choose live a life of obedience. They realize their greatest act of worship is being who God created them to be, and live out what God has assigned them to do, regardless of fame.
(3) FINISHING WELL is the wrong focus. FINISHING WELL is the by-product of just staying close to God.
Yes and No! Jesus lived out an intimate, ongoing, relationship with the Father, but Jesus also faced intentional choices in order to complete His mission (Luke 9:51; Matthew 26:39).
(4) FINISHING WELL is prevalent among leaders who love God.
Sadly, Wrong! In his research of Biblical, historical and contemporary leaders, Dr. J. Robert Clinton (The Making of a Leader) discovered a startling truth. FEW LEADERS FINISH WELL… only approximately 1-out-of-3. Well meaning, well intended followers and leaders have fallen away.
At the end of his life, Joshua faced a tide turning against living a Godly, surrendered life.
The very leaders and people he sought to influence, were quickly departing the God who had delivered on his promise, and led them into the land He had promised them. Joshua stood before those who had seen his life, and follower his leadership, and declared the following:
“But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15)
FINISHING WELL involves living out intentional choices.
NEXT BLOG: Reasons/causes that Christ-followers do NOT FINISH WELL
© Terry Walling 2013
