Jesus Our Finisher
March 1, 2024
Does it ever feel easier said than done to actually receive the promise from God? You can see it in the Word; it is finished, and Jesus already made it available. But if it’s available why does it seem like it’s not in my hands yet? Or maybe you see others walking seemingly so easily in the fulfillment of God’s promises? You’re doing everything you know. You are walking closely with Jesus, you’re in His Word and believe the Word, and you’re living righteously (not through the “works” mentality, but truly through grace shaping your life.) I have been there more times than I’d like to admit, but praise God for His patience. He has stuck it out with me teaching me about this. I’d like to share with you this week something the Lord showed me that I believe will help you easily and consistently walk in the promises of God you read in the Word.
First of all, we need to understand that it is God’s will for His people to live consistently in victory, going from glory to glory, increase to increase, higher to higher, blessing to blessing. He told us we will face persecution and pressure in life, but He never said that we would be on a constant roller coaster of up and down, blessed one day and pleading for a miracle the next. His perfect will is for us to live in faith in a way where we are consistently victorious, always on the rise. If this is not yet your revelation, start there. Get your mind renewed to the victory mentality. You will never get on the constant incline if your mind is still stuck in the place of lack and struggle. However, assuming you already believe that and have your mind renewed in that area let’s talk about how to renew our mindsets in the area of actually receiving His victory in all areas.
For myself, for a lot of time I had lived in a place of believing that to receive the promise in the Word that I believed to be true, I had to make my faith literally reach out in the spirit and grab that promise and pull it in. Picturing the fulfilled promise sitting there available I had to reach out and take it in faith in the spirit realm. While this is actually a true way of believing and I have used this language before in my teaching, sometimes this way of thinking can cause us to take on the pressure of making it happen ourselves. That’s not how it’s meant to be. I propose that it’s meant to be easy to receive. This stood in my way for a long time and if this has been a sticking place for you too, I’d like to help you get set free!
Let’s read Hebrews 12:2 NKJV “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” For the purpose of this topic, let’s assume you already received Jesus as your Lord and Savior. He already has imparted the beginning seed of faith in your spirit, so He has already been known to you as the “author of your faith”. Let’s focus on the part that says “finisher of our faith.” In all things faith, Jesus has already done the heavy lifting. He has completed the legal actions required to make available to us all the solutions, victories, healing, money, opportunities, help, advancements, freedoms, etc. that we would ever need or want in this life. He also takes it another step further and takes on the responsibility of authoring our faith, planting it in our hearts when we choose Him. Then He furthers it again by promising to not only start it, but also FINISH it! I believe He wants to make the life of faith so easy that it’s harder to resist it than to walk in it. That’s beautiful. We do hold a responsibility to 1.) choose Jesus and believe in Him and then 2.) put the effort in to walk the faith walk moving forward. It’s not our responsibility to walk it out in our own strength and ability. It is our job to rely on His strength and ability to walk it out and allow Him to finish it for us. Read Ephesians 6:10 AMPC “In conclusion, be strong in the Lord [be empowered through your union with Him]; draw your strength from Him [that strength which His boundless might provides].”
The amount of faith we are required to have to see a promise fulfilled is the smallest amount ever. We see this in Matthew 17:20 NKJV “So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” Have you ever seen a mustard seed? It is so teeny tiny that it can sit on the tip of your finger. A mustard seed is only 1/32th-3/32ths of an inch in diameter, that’s small! But the cool thing is, if we even have that to offer God, He is faithful to finish our faith on our behalf so we can walk in the victory anyway! Why? Because of His intense love for us. We have to allow this truth to take the pressure off of us and allow Jesus to finish the job. Stop worrying too much over “your faith level” and “your believing” because Jesus is the finisher, (completer, achiever, finalizer.) We just need to put the effort in to have a little bit of faith and He will bring it to success.
We are in covenant with God (Genesis 17 & Hebrews 8). Another way to say it is, we are in partnership with God. But the cool thing for us is that He’s the partner with all the power, resources, and ability. That’s God’s grace towards us. All He wants is our hearts to enter into the partnership and then He gives us access to ALL He has at His disposal. God gave me this visual to use as the catalyst to renew my mind on how to receive and walk in the fulfillment of His blessings in my life. Let’s view receiving through faith as though you are placing an online order. You have found in the Word the promise pertaining to your situation. You read it, you spoke it out as truth over your life, and you believe in your heart that it is God’s will for you. That is like hitting the “add to cart” and “place order” button on your computer. When you do this on Amazon, you have no doubt your package is being packed and ready to be shipped to your house and that in a few short days it will definitely arrive on your porch. It’s crazy that we have more faith in the fulfillment of our Amazon orders than we do in the fulfillment of God’s word in our lives! We need to start viewing the promises of God in our lives as “placed orders” with “confirmation receipts” in our inboxes, believing without a doubt our promise of victory is being packaged, sent on its way, and will surely be delivered to us. Jesus is so much more faithful and able than Amazon will ever be! When we place our order in heaven concerning the blessing of God in our lives, we can have definite sureness that our order is being fulfilled and will be brought to completion by our Savior. Rest knowing it is His responsibility to finish our faith to receive the package.
How can we get ourselves in that place of rest, sure that Jesus will come through as our finisher? We keep our hearts, minds, and lives clear of junk and distractions that choke out faith and peace. We’ve studied together the importance of the state of our hearts when it comes to living successfully in Christ and His blessings. Proverbs 4:20-23 NKJV says “My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart; For they are life to those who find them, And health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.” We have to protect what goes into our hearts. When we are endlessly scrolling, binging TV, and listening to all the junk from the world we are letting the clutter in. The clutter competes for our attention and keeps us from being able to fully focus on being at rest. It’s not always easy on the flesh, but we have to mature past that and enable our spirits to rule in our lives. When we keep our hearts clear of the clutter and full of the Word and His presence we will have a much easier time resting in His faithfulness to finish.
Remember once you’ve seen the blessing/victory in the Word, you’ve believed it in your heart, spoken it as completed out of your mouth over your life, you’ve hit “placed order” and now it’s en route to be delivered right to your house. You don’t have to strain and reach and go get it yourself. You can rest knowing it’s accomplished and happening right now. I hope this helps make faith-receiving easier for you. It’s not about you and your ability, it’s all about Jesus.
Comments