Have you ever wondered if God is ignoring your prayers, if your dreams and hopes will never be realized? If you will be able to stand firm in faith? If no matter how hard you try, there will be no reward for your efforts? It’s part and parcel of walking by faith and not by sight, isn’t it? We don’t always get to see what is happening behind the scenes. What does God say about our sense of doubt?
“He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.” Philippians 1:6
What a great verse of hope! But does that mean whatever task we undertake will be successful? Or that everything we seek to do ‘in the name of the Lord’ will be completed? Let’s look at the context of the verse.
Paul is writing a letter of encouragement to the faithful body of believers at Philippi. He tells them he thanks God for them and always prays for them with joy knowing they are faithfully living and advancing the gospel. They seem to be wholeheartedly doing ‘their part.’ But his confidence is not just that they will be successful but rather that GOD who first began a work of ‘good news’ in their hearts ‘from the first day until now’ ‘will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus’.
We sometimes act as if everything is up to us. Indeed, it is our job to faithfully respond to God’s call on our lives. But if we had the capacity to carry our good works on to our completion, then why did Jesus send his holy spirit? The good work in our lives did not even spring out of our own altruistic minds. It was begun by God. And it is God who will bring that good work to completion.
What good work is that? Is it our happiness and comfort? Is it the results of earthly ambitions, even those ‘committed to the Lord’? Paul was wearing prison chains as he wrote to them. That doesn’t sound like the successful completion of a plan. Yet he saw that even those punishing aspects of his life served to advance the gospel because they gave him opportunity to trust God and give testimony to his truth and grace.
Every problem is an opportunity to trust God.
Paul trusted God would be faithful to make their “love abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.” He trusted God would give them discernment to know not only what was good, but what was BEST, that their lives would be “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus – to the glory of God.” If you had just this carried to completion in your life, would that be enough?
This famous verse is not just about us. In fact, it is primarily about God, his goodness, and his persevering good work in us. Take heart. He who began a good work in you will not allow any circumstance to keep it from his completion.