Every Sunday morning, my church closes the service by reading the “Great Commission” Jesus gave for all of His disciples. This commission is one of the most quoted paragraphs in Christian history, as it is God’s desire for His Church to reach spiritually lost people. But there is also an incredibly powerful comfort that Jesus gives us at the end of this commission. He says, “behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” The literal rendering of this phrase is, “I am with you until it is all finished--until it is all said and done.”
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this Christian life thing is hard. It’s a rollercoaster of ups and downs, victories and failures, gains and losses, rejoicing and suffering, crying and laughter, encouragement and discouragement, opposition and edification, and every situation that pulls on our hearts.
I’ve learned that, as a Christian, there are times when you get terribly discouraged and disheartened. Your labors and toils and tears and sufferings are heavy and difficult to bear. We live in a fallen world that expresses its own evidence daily. You just can’t go anywhere without seeing it, hearing it, and feeling it.
Like a lot of Christians, I get very tired of it. I struggle with it. And like many others, I just want to go home and be with my Father in Heaven. But we know there’s work to do in this world. There is light that needs to keep shining, even as the darkness keeps pressing harder.
Is the Christian soldier alone? Does he hold all the darkness back with his own strength?
Is the Church alone? Does she fight the good fight without something that holds her fast?
I have to believe those words Jesus said. If they were just words, then this Christian life is truly a lonely life—a life where believers end up suffering and struggling alone. But Christ’s words are a promise to all of His followers. And, as I once heard a friend say, “Christ is no less with us today than He was with His disciples then.”
Does Jesus get it? Does He understand the weights and pains we have to deal with? Does he comprehend the agonies that bear on our hearts and minds while we seek to finish the race?
Yes. In fact, He understands those weights and pains and agonies more than we can comprehend. He chose to enter our fallen world and live in it. He chose to put up with people—even the most vile and sinful. He chose not only a life of suffering, but a death of intense suffering. It was all in our behalf. He understands every emotion and every hardship that a human being can experience. He is not someone who cannot sympathize with us. What He had to endure in His own suffering is more than we can imagine. It was something that only He could do. And that was what He did. He accomplished the most difficult mission at the cost of His life. And His righteous act paid for all sins.
After rising from the dead, Jesus returned to His Father in Heaven. But He promised to send His Spirit. And that is the same Spirit who indwells every believer—every soldier—of Christ. For now, we can’t see our Savior in person, we can’t feel those nail holes in His hands and feet, but He lives in us by His Spirit. He is with us “until it is all finished”. He will use and keep building His Church until the appointed time. Then He will consummate all things, according to His divine plan.
But it’s not just Christ’s Spirit we have. We also have His power that works in us. Second Peter 1:3-4 tells us this: "His divine power has given us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. By these He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desires."
The words of God are powerful to comfort and encourage us not only to endure but to persevere. We need endurance to hold fast and we need perseverance to keep pressing on. But it’s not our strength that enables us to do this on a daily basis. It is His. Our strength—even that of youths—will fail. But God’s vast strength does not fail. Though He is on high, He concerns Himself with our lives and isn’t going to quit on us.
Hebrews 12:3 says: “consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, so that you won’t grow weary and lose heart.”
Paul writes in 2 Timothy: “…everyone deserted me…But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the proclamation might be fully made through me”
David writes in Psalm 55: “Cast your burden on the LORD, and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.”
We are running to that finish line. Some of us are closer to the end than others. But for all ages, it is a race that involves many battles along the way. It calls for fighting that can only be waged spiritually. It will try our hearts. But the Lord will be our support. When we cross that finish line, the God of all grace who has called us to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will personally restore, establish, strengthen, and support us after we have suffered a little (1 Pt. 5:10).
In those moments when we are on our knees weeping because this world has become such a mess, and we’re asking God, “Do you even understand??”, we might imagine Christ kneeling next to us and slowly showing His hands. “I understand. I entered the mess. They turned Me into a mess. But I have conquered the mess.”
We don’t have a Savior who leaves and says, “Good luck!” No, we have a Savior who has proven that He keeps His Word, and that Word is powerful. The steps He took in going to the cross were excruciating. The resolve He showed in His mission was of God. And that same divine resolve is what we can equip ourselves with until it is all 'said and done' (1 Pt. 4:1).
Comfort one another. And all the more as you see the Day approaching.
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