How to Finish Strong

Both Paul and Peter had been told by the Lord that they would die for their testimony for Christ (2 Tim. 4:6; 2 Pet. 1:14). Yet neither of them was daunted by this sobering prospect. Paul looked downward into the grave with no terror (v. 6). He reflected backward upon a life well-spent with no regrets (v. 7). He looked upward and saw Heaven and its rewards prepared for him (v. 8).

It's not how we start, but how we finish, that counts. Vince Foster, adviser to former President Clinton, is believed to have committed suicide in 1993. At his funeral Clinton said: “It would be wrong to define a life like Vince Foster's in terms only of how it ended.” Nevertheless, that's how Foster will be remembered – by how he finished his race.

Paul's concern for Timothy as well as for himself was that he “finish strong.” Peter earnestly solicited for his readers that after his death, they would remember what he had taught them and so live that they would have an abundant entrance into heaven. So can we!

You can finish strong! You can “go out with a blaze.” You don't have to be a Demas (2 Tim. 4:10) or a “morning glory Christian.” The late great evangelist Vance Havner had a famous testimony sermon entitled “Home before Dark.” He preached the Gospel for more than 70 years before God called him home. He prayed fervently that God would not let him make “some big blunder on the home stretch.”

On Dr. Havner's 80th birthday celebration in Greensboro, NC, Dr. J. Robertson McQuilkin, president of Columbia Bible College, read an original poem inspired by. Havner's testimony message and entitled “Getting Home before Dark.”