How's Your Follow-Through?

How’s Your Follow-Through?

Luke 9:62 (NKJV) –

57) Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever you go.” 58) And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” 59) Then He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60) Jesus said, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.” 61) And another also said, “Lord I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.” 62) “But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

A. How’s your follow through? Are you hitting the goal you intended?

1. You may ask, what are you talking about? With almost every sport (Baseball, Football, Basketball, Golf) – every time you hit, throw, or kick the ball – there is the act of following through or completing the movement.

follow-through: the act of carrying a stroke to its natural completion; "his follow-through was straight down the line toward the target";

a. Without follow-through – the accuracy is greatly decreased and the play can be lost.

b. In fact, on any course or field, you do not see players or athletes even starting a to hit, throw, or kick that they do not intend to finish.

2. What does all the sports talk have to do with you or I? A lot when you think about it.

a. How many times in our lives have we started something, and then decided it wasn’t worth our time and energy. So, we let it go and walked away.

b. Or we started with the idea (conscious or subconscious) that we can get out of it if it doesn’t work for us.

3. We live in a society where you can get almost anything you want. And, if you don’t like it, you can take it back to trade for something you do like, or, get your money back.

a. We don’t have to keep anything we are not satisfied with.

When I was in the Air Force and stationed in Alaska, I awoke one morning and the Lord said, “You have a divorce mentality!” I said, “Lord how can I have a divorce mentality, I am not even married.”

The Lord began to reveal to me that it is a curse that is passed down through generations. It is also a mentality that permeates our society. You do not have to be married because the same mentality that fuels divorce is the same mentality that causes us to give up on so many things we start.

Let me say that I am in no way condemning anyone who has gone through a divorce. God knows the situation and the circumstances and the Bible talks about reasons for divorce. However, I will say if you have been through a divorce, it is good to break the curse off of yourself and your children.

Left undealt with, the generation curse of divorce can be passed through to children’s children. I believe it’s 4 generations. However, I don’t have that exact figure right now.

So, get free from it and be blessed.

4. This divorce mentality is always at work trying to take over in every aspect of our lives and into the church itself.

a. We start a job and we don’t like it – so – we quit.

b. We get married and when the honeymoon is over, we decide we are no longer happy, so, we get out. Or, we just live together to see if it will work out and then we’ll get married - maybe.

c. We start in ministry and when challenges of money come or things don’t go as we imagined them, we want to back off and sit on the sidelines.

5. Maybe it wasn’t like that at all for you. You started your walk with God and pursued the calling He placed on your life. You were staying on course and somewhere you were either sidetracked or sidelined by a distraction or circumstance.

a. Job.

b. Relationships.

c. Friends.

d. Finances.

B. Finish The Race.

1. No matter where you are at here, it is never too late to turn it around, to change your thinking and start on a track of finishing what you start. And, to teach it to your children.

Romans 11:29 (NKJV)

“For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”

2. What He has called you to do, you are able to complete it.