Philippians 1:6 English Standard Version (ESV) And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Completion is for another day, not today. Is this the completion of our new creature in Christ or is it the work we do in service to God?

What we see in scripture can often be confused by how we feel about ourselves. We all want to attain that perfected state, knowing in our hearts that we are not there yet. We must guard our hearts so that our past does not taint our service.

If we focus on what God is calling us to do rather than how we feel about ourselves we will find it is easier to serve God faithfully. Negative thoughts and feelings are nothing more than Satan trying to drag us down and stop the work of the gospel of Christ.

When others say “get over yourself” it is not always about ego. Sometimes it is our negative speech that hints at a deep seated problem with knowing who we are in Christ. A wise pastor once said to me “you keep shooting yourself in the foot”. What I was saying was hindering my walk with Christ. He put it in a way I could understand.

What we do to ourselves that is not in line with how God loves us hinders how we see His love towards us. God can love the imperfect because He knows the end result of the love, mercy and grace that He pores into our lives.

Our impatience only gets in the way. “I want it and I want it now.” That does not move us forward towards the finish line.

The older I get the closer the finish line appears in front of me. There is so much more to be done in service to God and if I rush to finish the race I am not looking at what God is doing at the moment. How I see and what I feel in the moment is not as important as what God is doing.

Romans 10:3 English Standard Version (ESV) For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.

Philippians 3:9 English Standard Version (ESV) and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith

Faith is the link.

Picking up where we left off yesterday, we might understand that when we were in sin, we were blind to the possibility of seeing what God could do for us through Christ’s work on the Cross.

The establishment of righteousness being placed on our ledger is not something we could see when we were dead in our sins. It was not until we placed our faith in Christ that we could see the link between what God has done and what we might obtain through faith.

This is where right standing affects right actions. Even if we wanted to do right, we could not see what is right in the sight of God. Now, by faith, we have access to Christ’s righteousness, right acts, because He speaks to us through the power of the Holy Spirit, to do what is the will of God. We can now do right if we hear right.

Romans 10:17 English Standard Version (ESV) So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Romans 16:26 English Standard Version (ESV) but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith

Now we have come full circle back to hearing God by faith, believing God by faith and then obeying God by faith, exactly as Abraham did in the beginning. This is why Abraham has been called the father of our faith.

Abraham made mistakes and so do we. Just as Abraham’s mistakes did not alter the promises of God, our mistakes cannot alter the promises of God. It is in the proper understanding of God’s promises that we will discover, by faith, that immaturity on our part will put off the right timing of those promises.

Everything comes at the right time.