From Trying to Finish What Christ Already Finished
Rev. Aniekan "Mbomboyo" Okokon ·
Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? — Galatians 3:3
Paul asked the Galatians a question that many of us could not answer honestly without wincing. They had begun by the Spirit, receiving what Christ finished, by faith. Then they had quietly gone back to work - completing by effort what grace had begun. He did not call it a small mistake. He called it foolishness, and asked who had bewitched them.
How it starts
Nobody sets out to finish Christ's work for Him. It creeps in. A sermon on holiness lands as a demand. A failure feels like a debt. A comparison with a more disciplined believer suggests you are behind. And slowly, without ever denying the cross, you begin to live as though your standing depended on your performance after all.
The symptoms
- Prayer that feels like reporting for inspection.
- A conscience that is never quite clean, however much you confess.
- Serving that resents interruption, because it is secretly earning something.
- Exhaustion that rest does not cure, because the tiredness is spiritual.
- A flinch when you think of God noticing you.
The cure is not trying less
The answer to striving is not laziness. It is faith - believing again what you believed at first, that the work is done. Hebrews says "strive to enter that rest", which sounds like a contradiction until you see what the striving is against: unbelief. The one thing you must labour at is to stop labouring for what is finished.
Putting it down
Say it plainly, to yourself and to God: I have been trying to finish what You finished. I am sorry, and I am tired, and I am going to stop. Then do the things you did before - pray, read, serve, give - but do them as a person who is complete, not as a person completing himself. The Spirit who began the work will carry it on. He never needed your help to save you. He only ever wanted your trust.