Finishing Strong: Aligning Your Life With God’s Larger Story
I would definitely recommend this book. Here are sone sketchy notes to give you some key points.
How must He have felt when He saw the condition in the churches He walked among?
His sight was unobscured, His words timeless. And His seven messages speak directly to churches today.
That call from Christ needs a response from every church today. There can be no better, more sure guide than these seven messages for church leaders to consider as they ask whether they are on track with what Jesus has in mind when His followers “go to church,” when they share life together in Christian community.
The Message to the Church in Ephesus:
You recognize and resist false teaching. Good. Stay alert!
You no longer love me or others as you once did. Repent!
The Message to the Church in Sardis:
You think you are alive. No! You are dead. Hear what I say!
You’re blind to your turning away from truth. Wake up!
The Message to the Church in Philadelphia:
With little strength, you persevere. I’m pleased!
Times are hard. But I’m coming soon. Wait for My return!
The Message to the Church in Laodicea:
In your pride, you believe you’re self-sufficient. Humble yourselves!
You’ve closed yourself to what you need from Me. Expect discipline!
In twenty-five of the twenty-nine passages in the Gospels where Satan is mentioned, it is the Lord who is speaking. We must not dismiss the devil as a cartoon figure in a red suit with a tail.
An intriguing thought: the sin that changed Lucifer into Satan might be the exact same sin that, under the serpent’s influence, Adam and Eve committed. And take it a step further. The sin first committed in the heavenlies, the same sin first committed in a garden on Earth, is the one sin that every human but one commits, both the godliest believer and the ungodliest unbeliever. There are sins I don’t commit. You, too, are not guilty of many sins others commit. But there is one sin we all commit. And it gets us off track.
Spiritual formation is relating in ways that align our smaller stories with God’s Larger Story.
And that is my response to Question #1: What is the one sin we all commit? It is taking God’s prerogative, and trying to determine for ourself, as Satan did, what is good and what is evil.
Larry’s reflections in this chapter are a call to embrace the reality of life’s hardships as opportunities to trust in God’s goodness and to grow in spiritual maturity.
Lessons from Larry’s Journey
- Honesty in Faith: Larry Crabb modeled a faith that was honest about doubts, pain, and struggles, showing that spiritual maturity involves wrestling with God into trusting relationship and towards oneness, rather than ignoring difficult questions.
- Pursuit of Intimacy with God: He emphasized the importance of intimacy with God over mere religious activity, advocating for a faith that is deeply relational and authentic.
- Finishing with Purpose: Larry believed that the later years of life are a unique opportunity to finish well by mentoring others, investing in family and community, and living out one’s calling with clarity and resolve.
Without encountering the boredom of what seems like pointless existence in the life, and without encountering the pain and despair of misery that nothing relieves, we’re not going to get deeply in touch with the quiet, purposeful joy of living in love.
I had done a talk on Ecclesiastes, highlighting chapter one and verse thirteen: “God has dealt a tragic existence to the human race.”
Explaining truth is very different than experiencing truth.
And it’s a story that reveals that our smaller story—the story between our life and our death—often won’t make any sense to us now.
The philosopher William Barrett said, “It is better to encounter one’s experience in despair than to never encounter it at all.”
I do not want you to balance your blessings with your hardships, hoping to find contentment that blessings outweigh the difficulties in your life.
The Ecclesiastes experience, which you just tasted and will taste again, is your opportunity to seriously wrestle with the emptiness of this life. It is an opportunity to look beyond what you experience in this life for the stability of hope and meaning that I long to give.
It’s patently not a list of good things to do. It’s not a re-committed pledge to pray more, read the Bible more, or do more nice things for others; all good things to do.
The way back centers on some understanding of the one sin we all commit, the one sin Satan introduced into existence and then into the human race, the one sin energizing every other sin that moves us off track toward a wasted life. The more we recognize our involvement in that one sin, the more we will realize we’re in a battle raging every day, a battle for our souls.
The good fight is fought less by doing and more by believing, by renewing our minds, changing the way we think (se Romans 12:2).
We come up with our own understanding of what would be good for us to experience in order to feel good, and what we think would be harmful to our enjoyment of ourselves and life, evil to avoid. And now the terrible truth: when we make choices based on our self-determined idea of good and evil, we become followers of Satan’s lead, rejecting God’s loving authority over our lives.
Face a terrible truth. Sin is not a mere mistake. Sin is as evil as Satan himself. Prepare for a depth of conviction that leads to grace, the empowering grace of God’s goodness, become your richest treasure, even when sorrow and pain are hovering over your life.
Trust a wonderful truth. “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5 ESV). The beauty of divine light will emerge from the deepest darkness. We can get back on track, as often as we fall off. “But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant” (Romans 5:20).
Savor God’s goodness. Savor God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the midst of heart-wrenching reality, there is another reality, Things are not as they seem. Much is painful, frightening, sad. Yet God says, Do not fear, telling us not that it is wrong to fear, but that we need not be controlled by our fear. Jesus knew fear in Gethsemane, but remained in full control of what He chose to do. The Spirit’s soul-shaping work, already begun in us when we met Jesus, will continue to completion when He returns. The good wind will blow.
Listen to God speak
- I want you.
- I am with you.
- I can use you.
- I am coming for you.
Jesus leads us back on track with good news, and He is with us all the way, helping us finish strong.
Behold, I am with you always, to the end…” (Matthew 28:20).