I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
II Timothy 4:7
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day:
and not to me only, but unto ALL them also that love his appearing.
II Timothy 4:6-8.
Several weeks ago, on a particularly quiet day, I sat down with envelopes and boxes of various sizes. As I sorted and arranged the photos into scrapbooks and albums for my children, it didn't take long for me to realize how many of those "frozen moments of time" portrayed friends and loved ones who are now passed from my life. So many gone on: child, biological parents and grandparents, adoptive parents and grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, friends.
You know, we all start out with hopes and dreams of completing our life's journey enjoying the company of those we love: childhood friends, siblings, other close kin, our husband or wife--our children and their offspring, friends we make along life's way. Yet all along this road of life, there are gaps created when those we love are called away from this existence.
The pain of such separation is very nearly more than we can bear, isn't it? Whether through sudden, unexpected tragedy or after prolonged illness--separation from those we love hurts so badly--it rends our hearts as we consider the years ahead without their presence. Even for those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, and thus have His reassurance that there is coming a reunion day, where never again will there be any separation, it's still painful. How much the more tragic and sad for those who don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior--those who cannot cling to the hope of such assurance!
Years ago, I remember often seeing Mama sitting idle, with a faraway look in her eyes. I would ask her, "Mama, what are you thinking about?" Without fail, she would answer, "I was just missing Daddy." They were married for forty-six years. She was like a little child lost when he died. So many times I had heard Mama say that the two of them had "grown up together"--the two of them had experienced so many things, both good times and bad--yet now she would go on without his shadow falling across hers in life's pathway.
You see, as long as I had Mama, I had a big part of Daddy, too. Then when Mama left this life, they both were gone. I had begun to seriously mature in my emotions and actions--the closeness she and I were beginning to enjoy with one another was cut far short of what I had anticipated. You know, all those things I had meant to say to her but not yet done so, she would not hear. The things she and I had planned to do together would be finished by only one of us, if at all.
We all hear, "So long as you keep them in your heart...", but it's small comfort, isn't it? Of course, there are memories to treasure, but the truth is, memories cannot fill the gaps left by a loved one's presence, can they? HOWEVER, they do help to sustain us in the thin, lonesome hours when our hearts ache to once more feel their touch or hear their voice. Thus it is SO important to make certain we spend time creating loving memories with those we most care about.
Material possessions will NOT give us that comfort, I can assure you. All the hours we spent away from our loved ones in our mad rush to grab all the goods of this world that we can, will be a VERY POOR SUBSTITUTE for precious memories that could have been made--those moments that "keep us going" until such time as we are called away from this life into life eternal with Jesus Christ, to once more be reunited with those who have gone on ahead.
I ask you, are we really and truly living our lives in dedicated service to Jesus? Are we putting forth our honest, best effort to witness to those we love, those we meet each and every day, about the saving power of Salvation through Jesus Christ? Do we love those we say we do enough to share with them the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Are we faithful to pray fervently for the souls of our loved ones? We are supposed to witness to ALL we meet, but do we even witness to those close to us? Do we bear one another up in prayer--do we encourage one another along life's pathway? Or have we grown selfish and self-centered, "giving up" on those we profess to love because we don't get the results we desire when we think we ought to?
Understand this: salvation through Jesus Christ is the ONLY hope we have for an everlasting reunion with our loved ones--a reunion from which there will never again be a separation, my friends. A time of reunion when all our battles are won, when there will never again be any sickness or sorrow such as we experience at times in this life. Oh yes, heaven WILL surely be worth it all, worth anything we might have to endure here, but you see, we must "fight a good fight, finish the course, keep the faith".
As the Apostle Paul penned the beautiful words we find in II Timothy 4:6-8, we can see he understood this. He knew his life was winding down. Yet, for him, the declaration of such foreknowledge was not discouraging or frightening, not saddening or grief-laden. He knew in Whom He had believed and he knew to be absent from his body would mean he was present with the Lord.
The word he used for fight is agon: conflict or fight. When he wrote, "I have fought a good fight", it was agonizomai--a good agon. When we can truthfully say we have done our genuine best, there is a deep satisfaction from it. Know this, though: OUR best is not our brother's or our sister's best, our mother's or our dad's best, but if it is genuinely, truthfully our best, there is nothing in this world to match such satisfaction!
"I have finished my course..." Mama used to tell me, "Dying is easy--living is hard." The same is true of our journey in life--the easy part is beginning. Yet what counts is the finish, what we wind up with at the end. The ONLY investment that will count is that which we have made in PEOPLE!
It's a fact. Of all those I have seen pass from this life, not a one of them sent a farewell message to their furniture, their bank accounts, their stocks and bonds, their cars or their houses. None of them asked for any of their possessions to come and see them--but they did want their loved ones around them. I tell you, it won't matter how much money we have accumulated, nor how much real estate we own--what will truly matter most is the time we have invested in people! The words said or left unsaid--the deeds done or left undone--when it comes time for this life to end, those are the things that matter most.
We've all seen marathons at one time or another: there was always a winner and several "runner-ups", but then we'd see or hear of those runners still coming in some time after all the furor of the winners had died down. Why? Because they wanted to finish. It was a personal accomplishment to them--they might not wear the victor's crown, but they had the satisfaction of saying, "I finished".
In our race of life, it is unique to each of us--it IS a personal triumph (or sadly in too many cases, a defeat). Whatever, wherever, whenever we reach our "finishing point", we will lay down this life as we know it and take on our eternal existence.
Where will that eternal existence be? In the joyous reward of the presence of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, or forever in utter darkness, forever separated from Him?
My friends, "this" world, "this" life is NOT all there is to us! The Bible teaches us in John 14:1-4, Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.
In this busy world of ours today, we start many things we never finish, don't we? It's very easy to quit, to drop out, isn't it? All of us have some unfinished work in our lives. Some are unfinished because we realize the futility of them or their lack of worth--some are unfinished because we grew discouraged. What's unfinished, what has been left undone in your life? Is it truly best left that way, or should you go back and see it to completion? Are there words left unsaid? Apologies never made? Hurts never mended?
Have you "kept the faith"? It means, "I have kept the conditions of the contract--I have been true to my engagement; I have never lost my confidence and hope." Oh sure, there will be times for even the strongest of us when our faith may waver, but for the majority of us, we experience times when our faith collapses around us. We pray a certain prayer and it's not answered as we wanted it answered--we rebel against God. Or we lose our faith in him like a petulant child who was refused a cookie or ice cream before supper: "I didn't get my way--I don't like YOU any more." Yet, we MUST ENDURE TO THE END, keeping our faith in Christ Jesus, through ALL things. There is no sadder situation than that of someone who has given up their faith in God, sometimes even after many years of endurance.
You know, the Apostle Paul could have gone on to such greatness in the Sanhedrin--he was well educated, he knew "The Law". He had been taught from an early age by the very best teachers. He could have probably had a quite secure, sedate life had he chosen to continue to do things "his way". Yet, on the road to Damascus that day, he surrendered his will to God and his life was forever changed. Through thick and thin, in freedom and in imprisonment, in peril by land and sea, his life jeopardized by both bad and "good" people--he still fought a good fight, finished his course, kept his faith in God.
Even as he penned II Timothy 4:6-8, the Apostle Paul was facing death for the decisions he had made to fight that good fight, finish that course, and keep the faith. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto ALL them also that love his appearing. II Timothy 4:6-8.
Paul did not think of this time in his life with regret, nor did he fear his own execution--it was Paul's offering of his very life to God. As Paul penned these words of farewell, he was turning from the impending verdict of mankind to the verdict of God. He knew the sentence that had been passed upon him, but he also knew something far greater: with great anticipation he awaited his Master's, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."
Ever since that life-changing day on the road to Damascus, Paul had given everything to God: his money, his time, his education, the vigor of his body, his mental ability, the devotion of his heart. Now the only thing left to offer was his very life--the very essence of his being--and he was glad to lay it down. Oh, to lay down this weary old body and take up the perfection of Heaven!
When Paul used the word, "departure", it was the word analusis, which paints many pictures of its application to Paul's use of it.
- Analusis is the word for unyoking an animal from the plow or the cart it pulls. Paul was about to be released from the toil of his life.
- Analusis is the word used to describe loosening bonds or fetters. Death for Paul was a release from the trials and labors of this life, his confinement in a Roman prison, to the glorious liberty of heaven's courts and being eternally in the presence of the One he had served so many years. It was release from a body tired and scarred by beatings, shipwrecks, narrow escapes of various kinds, sickness from cold and hunger.
- Analusis is the word used to describe loosening the ropes of a tent, or the mooring ropes of a ship. After all the many journeys he had made by road and by sea, he was "striking camp" for the last time--he was sailing out of life's harbor into the greatest depth of all--he was setting sail to cross the waters of death to arrive in Heaven's haven of eternal rest with his beloved Savior.
Paul then went on to write in II Timothy 4:8, Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto ALL them also that love his appearing. For many years, Paul had faithfully borne the cross of the Gospel of Jesus Christ--yet he was about to trade it in for the crown of righteousness--the "laurel wreath of victory". He knew that before the crown could be worn, the cross had to be borne and he had faithfully carried his cross. And as usual, not thinking only of himself, he added, and not to me only, but unto ALL them also that love his appearing. I am SO thankful he left such a reminder behind: if we are willing to fight a good fight, finish our course, and keep the faith, we, too, can trade in our battered old cross for a glorious crown of righteousness. The peace and joy with which Paul faced the end of his life is available to all who fight that fight, finish that course and keep the faith!
Our existence in this life is not the end, my friends: each of us have a decision to make as to where we will spend eternity. The way has been made plain--Jesus Christ died an agonizing death on that old rugged cross so that the way could be made plain to one and all who are willing to follow it. He became the Supreme Sacrifice for our sins, that we might have life and have it more abundantly through Salvation.
Oh, can you not envision that, even with so limited a view as we mortals have, of the glories of Heaven? As wonderful as it will be to be set free from the cares of this existence, as marvelous a time as being reunited with those who have gone on before, how much more the grand and glorious knowledge that we will forever be with our blessed Redeemer--the One Who took OUR place on that old cross to give us eternal life in Him!
Yes, this life is going to end one day, for each and every one of us. Did we run this race with patience? Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1,2. Are we keeping our faith in God? Do we eagerly anticipate being in the presence of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ?
If we truly KNOW in Whom we have believed, we have the same assurance in those beautiful words that Paul penned: I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto ALL them also that love his appearing.
"Finishing The Course" Copyright © 2002 by Patricia Sikes.
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