Topic: Heart for the Harvest: Passion for finishing

Text: John 4:34

The great commission is not an eternal enterprise, but it has eternal consequences; it is the result and impact of it that is eternal. Time itself is not an eternal creation of God. There was a time when there was no time, and there will still come a time when time shall be no more. The popular verse of scripture in Matthew 24:14, the Bible says “and this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come”. Every messenger of God has a vital part to play in taking the witness of the gospel of Jesus unto all nations, finishing that task is very vital in fulfilling destiny.

In John 17:4, Jesus reported back to his father “I have glorified you on earth: I have finished the work which you gave me to do”. John 19:30 says, “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, it is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost”. The one talking here is the Truth and the Life, he cannot lie, if he said he finished, then he finished. In John 20:21, he told us “as my father sent me, even so sent I you” if the father sent him to finish, then he hasn’t sent us to start and stop half way. We have a mandate to finish, don’t give an excuse that you did your best, if your best didn’t finish the job, then that best wasn’t good enough. One of the frightening statements of Apostle Paul for me in all of the Epistles is in 2Timothy 4:7 “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith”. Three terrible things in righteousness, Paul, the Apostle confirmed, he did there:

1. He was not just fighting, but fighting a good fight, the right fight;
2. He finished His course, 100%, completed the task;
3. He kept the faith. Ah!, many have lost the faith in the course of the fight to finish. This, for me, is the summary of finishing and finishing well.

For the Nigerian Church today, the task of reaching the remaining 43 Unreached and least evangelized tribe stares us in the face. I read from the NBTT Nigeria- global alliance document, “There are about 700 languages spoken in Nigeria. 325 of these still do not have even a single verse of the bible translated. About 30% of them are becoming extinct, even though Nigeria was among the first countries in Africa to form a national Bible translation organization. So much is being done but we have not yet finished. The Joshua Project report indicates that there are 7,248 unreached people groups out of the 17,281 people groups in the world. Wycliffe Global Alliance reported in 2023 that only 3,658 out of the 7,394 languages spoken in the world has any portion of the Bible translated in their language, just 736 have the full bible. What exactly are you doing to finish the remaining task?

Prayer:

1. Lord help me to discover my assignment in bringing your glory to the hearts of men across the nations.
2. Burden the heart of your church, especially in Nigeria, with the finishing mentality. Create the hunger to pursue and the appetite to complete the task of reaching the unreached.
3. Grant us the wisdom and strategy to acquire speed and bind our hearts together in unity to maximize strength.

Pastor Victor Idakwoji

Director of Mobilization and Networking, NEMA