Finish Strong
http://www.maniacworld.com/are-you-going-to-finish-strong.html
If I was a bit smarter, I would have figured out how to embed the video above on my blog. Guess you'll just have to take a minute and go to it. Click on it now, and come back to my blog after you have watched it.
First I want to apologize for not updating this as regularly as I'd have liked to. I can't tell you how many times I sat down and thought, "Man, I should do my blog."
I love doing it. I like to write. I have been told I am not half bad at expressing myself in the blogosphere. So, through the course of blogging, I haven't been as consistent as I should have been, but it's not always how you do in the middle..................................if you finish strong.
Now I know scripture says in Matthew 24:13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
Most of the time we use this scripture as almost an excuse for us to not be consistent in our race. "I'm not the fastest"
"I don't pray as much as I should."
"I'm not as faithful right now......"
Jesus didn't give us an excuse not to try in the middle of the race, and we can't quit in the middle of the race, but thank God the race isn't over in the middle. The race doesn't end when I am at my weakest point. I may not have started with the biggest bang. There may have been a time in my walk with God that I wasn't always where I needed to be, but thank God the race didn't end in the middle.
Thank God I get an opportunity to finish. And how I finish makes all the difference. Micah 7:8 Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me.
Micah 7:8 may never have come to life for me before like it did when I saw this fella in the video I posted. "If I try 100 times........" How many times have you said, "I'm gonna try to do better." "I am going to go to church." "I am going to live for God." only to fall down again and again and again.
Well friend, I have good news for you, the race doesn't end in the middle. He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. Terry Long translation: Get up, and try this thing again, 'cause it's not how you start that matters, and it's not how tired you get in the middle of the race that matters, and it's not if you even failed somewhere along the line that really matters. What really matters is how are you going to finish. I can't help but think of the plane crash on the Hudson River this week as I write this. Wow, did that pilot have a bad day or what? They said it was geese that brought down a 47 ton jet, and the poor guy had three choices, Uptown Manhatten, Long Island or the freezing Hudson River. Not a good start, not a good middle, but everyone survived because he was determined to finish strong.
Are you sure he was Pastor? Absolutely, why else would he have gone through that plane two seperate and distinct times to make sure no one on his watch died inside that plane when help was outside, on the way. He was determined to finish strong.
Hey Samson, you're a failure. You lost your Nazarite vow, you succumbed to a philistine harlot, and now you're grinding wheat in a grist mill. You are the laughing stock of the people God called you to deliver Israel from. You had a great start, but somewhere along the road, you got lost. But wait a minute friend, you almost ended the story in the middle, because Samson talked to God before the story ended. And he finished strong. In fact, he finished stronger than he had ever been in all of his life.
I can't help but think that if a guy with no limbs can do what looks to be physically impossible. See, he isn't "equipped" with all the faculties to get up. God has equipped me and He has equipped you. Romans 8:29-31 (King James Version)
29For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
30Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
31What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
I'm pretty sure that means God has set us up to finish strong.
