Finality Is Not Final With Jesus In Your Life

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.’ (Colossians 3:15)

In May, I retired from my career, which I can say was not as traumatic as I thought retirement would be. I’m 61, so there’s no Social Security checks rolling in yet, but I have a pension and savings that are keeping us even keel. But there is a sense of ‘finality’ in it, knowing that I won’t be going back to being involved in anything like government contracting. I still get reminders from time to time, like getting ‘pings’ from US Southern Command in Miami or Central Command or Special Operations Command in Tampa about ‘Response Team Activation’ and ‘Essential Personnel Reporting’, though I haven’t worked in any of them for several years now.

Also, dates on the calendar come up that remind me of ‘finality’. My Dad’s birthday was 2 September; my Mom’s passing is coming up on 25 October. I don’t miss them as the years have removed the sadness of their passing, but these anniversaries do make me pause in thinking of them and what they would have been thinking of about today’s events. I then think that time doesn’t wait for anyone, and it didn’t stop with their passing and when it’s my turn to enter eternity it won’t stop for me, either – as it shouldn’t.

As mentioned, I don’t have a sadness over any of this. It is more of regaining a focus on what the Lord has done in my life, and what he wants me to do. I think more now of the future; what does the Lord want me to do before the final curtain falls? Some things are apparent (like continuing the WOTD) and other things I won’t know until I get to the bridge to drive over it (or drive off of it) and then I’ll know where the Lord is taking me. I do know when it’s all done where I’ll be, so the journey is not so imposing, fortunately.

Now you may be asking what this verse has to do with ‘finality’.  Well, in Colossians 3:1-14, Paul speaks about the finality we must have in our secular, sinful lives to have the fresh start of eternal life with Jesus, and Colossians 3:15 (with verses 16 & 17) is the culmination of his words toward that.  We always face finality in the stages of our lives.  Ecclesiastes 3 is usually the place to go Scripturally to discuss the ‘seasons’ in life, as there is a time for things to occur; a time to reap, a time to sow, and a time to live and yes, a time to die.   But is death really final?

In general, we graduate from high school and leave our parents, there’s a finality there of our childhood of sorts.  We marry and there’s the stage of having children, then there’s the finality of when we’ve hit our quota of kids and look forward to grandkids.  The finality of working and entering retirement.  Finally, there is the finality of mortal life, and we graduate into eternity.

But the biggest finality is the one of Colossians 3:15, where we put away our past and go forward in Christ.  This overrides all other milestones we experience.  Some of you may have read the above and thought, ‘I didn’t graduate high school’ or ‘I never had kids’; these are not important in comparison to the answer to the question, ‘Have you accepted Jesus as Lord and repented or turned away & repudiated your sin, and asked Him to forgive you?’.  This is the biggest point of finality that anyone needs be concerned about facing, as if you have done this all others have no real stigma or concern. 

Death is not a big deal, as with Christ you have everlasting life!  I know in the big picture that is irrelevant as I’ve already achieved the big milestone of accepting Christ and walking with Him.  Not in perfection, but in His Grace as He can covered me in His perfection.