THE HEART OF A FINISHER. By Pastor Fernando

SCRIPTURE - 2 Corinthians 8:11

Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means.

OBSERVATION
As Paul encourages the Corinthians for their generosity and good intentions, he exhorts them to go beyond and turn their intentions into complete actions. He wants them to have the heart of a finisher, to follow through, and to carry the ball across the line. He also makes sure that they have all they need so there is no room for excuses for incomplete actions.

APPLICATION
One of the greatest problems with our culture is that people are usually coming up with good intentions, but very few carry them through. We think about it, we prepare about it, we dream about it, but at the end, we end up delivering only a portion of what we intended to do. I have so many stories in my own life that follow this pattern. The first one I can remember, when I was 16 years old, I was learning electronics in high school and I took apart an old TV with the intention to fix it. I kept the parts in a box for several moths until I had to throw it away. And just like that project, my life has a large collection of unrealized good intentions.

This morning I feel exhorted by the Holy Spirit to take a look at those things that God has put in my heart and that have been started, but have not been followed through until completion. I need to develop and apply the heart of the finisher in all those good intentions. I cannot allow opposition or setbacks derail me from what God has put in my heart to do. If something doesn't happen, it will be not because my lack of resilience. I need to match my good intentions with completed actions according to my means. And I'm confident that as I give everything I have, God will come up with what is lacking.

PRAYER
Dear heavenly Father, thank you for being so patient with me when I get excited at the beginning of a project, have good intentions, but then those intentions cool off and become one more box of unfinished business. I've been cluttering my life with those lately. In your mercy, let me revisit those projects and help me to carry them through to completion. Show me how to give everything I have according to my means, and give me the faith to keep trusting in your provision for what I don't have to complete them. You are faithful. The good work that you started in me, you will be faithful to complete it. You are a finisher. Please give me your heart, the heart of a finisher.