Faith is only past. Faith is never future.
All was completed in that glorious
proclamation,
the last breath of His torture,
the final word of His ended life
"It is finished"

And immediately He died . . . .

His work of saving us from hell,
His labor of getting us to heaven,
set in a final culmination that
can never be diminished nor increased,
fixed in eternity and reachable today
in the practical for the solution of
all my crises to the very last attainment of my destiny.

The carpenter has finished carving the
wood of His own humanity
into the framework of His Father's will.

A new humanity . . . obedient, holy.

His finished work is my finished work.
His tortured obedience is mine -
without the torture.
His victory over pitiful humanity
mine to enjoy and live out.

As He was finished, I too am "finished"
and all I experience of His power
is simply that which already was
and was waiting for my eyes to open
by the incentive of my heart's need.
Willing sight through desperation.

My blindness to His finished work
is the obstacle to its enjoyment.
My only lack is this: to see.

Not to "get," not to wrench from His stingy hand
something yet to be accomplished!

He has no more to give, no more to do.
He rests by the satisfaction of the Father's Holy Laws.

He rests from His work and I . . . I rest In that
vicarious work from my own tedious
striving to be.
To do.

It is done. Do you see?
What is done? My destiny.
Your destiny.
Our eternal being.
We are complete in Him.
Now, this very second.
Not progression into it by worth.
Not attainment by effort.

Only by realization . . .

He is my identity.
He is my purity.
He is my . . . you-name-it.

Strive to be holy? Too late, you
already are made so.
Trying to get what you already have.
A rich man, in possession of every wealth,
running and panting for the treasure that rests
clinging to his hand.

Foolish effort, gaining nothing.
Losing the very wealth he seeks
by unseeing ignorance. 

Anything I need is already there.
All the demands of my poverty are His Waiting Gift.
Because it's past and done,
I merely receive. 

Nothing is wanting, nothing forgotten.
"My shepherd is the Lord,
I have everything I need."

And when I live in that brash certainty,
I possess instead of lack, I sail and need not crawl.

You'll never have it by wanting it.
You'll never see it by waiting for it
You'll only possess it when it's yours,
when "it's finished" and you merely
wait for its sure appearance. 

Faith is not that He will "do" in some future reward,
not what I have earned by points of goodness.

Faith is not that "He could" but simply won't right now.

Faith is this: He has. It is.
He rests because He has.

And I may rest now
this day, every day
because He has finished
even this day. 

Jesus has won over humanity, over Satan.
It is over.

Eternity is finished.
History is complete.
To the last detail, to the
final appearance.
It is ALL finished!

What is His work now?
Only the Prayer, the unending intercession
that we, His groping sheep will simply . . .
believe those sparse words,
"IT IS FINISHED!"
and then . . . see that Glorious Completion
in a personal . . . living experience.

Copyright © 1999 Martha Blaney Kilpatrick