He Which Hath Begun a Good Work

The Ground

Paul’s confidence here rests on a specific claim worth examining closely: he which hath begun a good work in you. Not you began this work through your own initiative and must now finish it through your own remaining effort, but he began it, and the same he is the one who will perform it, carry it through, to completion.

This is a needed word as this final movement moves toward its close. All the waiting, breaking, and sowing this whole book has walked through were never, in the deepest sense, entirely your own accomplishment to begin with. God began this work, in you, during this fallow season, and Paul’s confidence is specifically that the one who began it will not abandon it unfinished.

Notice the timeline given: will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. This is not a promise of quick completion, wrapped up neatly by whatever deadline you might prefer. It is a promise of ongoing faithfulness across the whole remaining span of your life, God’s continued work in you, not finished merely because this particular fallow season eventually ends.

Carry this confidence forward as this book closes. Whatever good work God has begun in you through this fallow ground, through the waiting, the breaking, the sowing, he is not finished, and he will not abandon it. He will perform it, faithfully, until the day of Jesus Christ.