Verses 10-12: “And in this I give advice: It is to your advantage not only to be doing what you began and were desiring to do a year ago; but now you also must complete the doing of it; that as there was a readiness to desire it, so there also may be a completion out of what you have. For if there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has, and not according to what he does not have.”
Our Carpenters for Christ mission trips of recent have been able to go home early, as the work was completed early. This year was different, however. We (as the mission group) stayed the full two weeks. True, the majority of the major work was done in the first week, but due to varying circumstances, responsibilities, and reasons, we had members of the team leave early for home. Even members of the host church had to go back to jobs after the first week. During the second week, only a small handful of the team remained, working on touch-up work and framing. By the end of the week, the team was down to about 5 people…but we had finished the mission God had laid before us, and we left feeling like the job was complete.
Paul here is speaking on the sensitive subject of financial giving to support the church. Money can be a touchy subject, but Paul approached it with God-led authority on its importance. That is true of any giving we give to support God’s church. Whether it is money or, in the Carpenters’ case, time and work, we need to finish what we do to the best of our ability and under the direction of the Lord.
Leonardo da Vinci, the famous Italian polymath, was very famous for all his works and inventions. However, “da Vinci was notorious for never finishing his work. His wide range of interests often distracted him and his perfectionism discouraged him from declaring a painting officially finished. Often accused of being a helpless procrastinator, the problem wasn’t that da Vinci wouldn’t start works, it was that he was constantly starting works and neglecting to finish the ones he had already begun. ”
https://www.walksofitaly.com/blog/art-culture/leonardo-da-vinci-surprising-facts#:~:text=Da%20Vinci%20was%20notorious%20for%20never%20finishing%20his%20work.&text=The%20first%20of%20which%20was,the%20artist%20never%20officially%20finished.
Let it not be said of you, O Christian, that we never finish what the Lord has tasked us to do. We need to try. We might fail to finish, but never let it be from a lack of trying or a lack of determination. When Jesus’s work was done on the cross, remember what He said: “It is finished.” And to echo that, remember what Paul said in Philippians 1:6: “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;” https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians%201%3A6&version=NKJV
Something to think about.
Combing The Word 