We are not the last chapter
The church continues
The story of the church is not finished.
It began in an upper room and it will end — if it ends this side of the return of Christ — in forms no one in that upper room could have imagined. The church that is being planted in the slums of Lagos and the apartment complexes of Tehran and the house churches of Chengdu and the storefronts of São Paulo is not the church of Constantine or Calvin or Wesley. It is the church of the Spirit, moving in ways that the previous generation did not predict and the next generation has not yet seen.
The story continues.
The mission continues. There are still people who have never heard the name of Jesus — not because the church has been lazy but because the world is very large and the task is very great. There are still injustices that require the church to stand in the street and say: not this. There are still the poor, the dying, the imprisoned, the lonely, the shamed — all the people Jesus said he came for, all the people he said are him in disguise.
The church continues because Christ continues — because the one who said I will build my church is still building it, still calling people into it, still sending it into the world he made and loves and is redeeming.
You have been reading this devotional for three hundred and fifty-five days.
Today is not the last chapter. It is the latest chapter.
You are in it.
“I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
— Jesus, Matthew 16:18
“being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.”
He who began a good work will bring it to completion.
Not you. Him.
You are not responsible for finishing the story. You are responsible for your chapter — for the specific stretch of road you have been given, in the specific time and place and community you inhabit, with the specific gifts and the specific wounds you carry.
Run it faithfully. Hold the chain. Say the creed. Come to the table. Pray the prayer. Pass what you received to someone who is coming behind you.
He will bring it to completion.
That is the most important sentence in the devotional. Not one of the most important. The most.
He will bring it to completion. You can rest in that — and from that rest, run well.