Grace in Galatians (Part 214) – How Grace Changed The Way I Finish

https://youtu.be/DMSgOz6f7Kg?si=9Qr1C1ZJ1X3j8ftO

Today, we continue our focus on THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, as we learn to maintain our posture of faith after God has revealed His plans for our future.

Today is a special day. This is the final message of our Grace in Galatians series. Over the last several messages, I have told you how grace changed the way I see God, the way I see myself, the way I receive, the way I handle pressure, and the way I see my purpose. Today, I share the sixth and final great change. Grace changed the way I finish.

Key scriptures for this year:

2 Peter 3:18 GNT“But continue to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Savior, Jesus Christ. To Him be glory now and forever.”

Luke 10:20 Mirror“It’s time for you to rediscover who you are from Heaven’s perspective.”

1 John 3:10 Mirror“There is a very visible and vast difference between living one’s life from your God identity or from a fallen man’s mindset.”

Proverbs 25:2 NKJV“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.”

Jeremiah 29:13 NIV“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

Scripture we will study today:

Galatians 6:9 TPT“And don’t allow yourselves to be weary or disheartened in planting good seeds, for the season of reaping the wonderful harvest you’ve planted is coming!”

John 19:30 NKJV“So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished!’ And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.”

Galatians 6:18 TPT“May the wonderful grace of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, be with your spirit, my dear brothers and sisters! Amen.”

Supporting scriptures:

Isaiah 40:31 AMPC“But those who wait for the Lord [who expect, look for, and hope in Him] shall change and renew their strength and power; they shall lift their wings and mount up [close to God] as eagles [mount up to the sun]; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint or become tired.”

Acts 20:24 TPT“But whether I live or die is not important, for I don’t esteem my life as indispensable. It’s more important for me to fulfill my mission and finish the ministry my Lord Jesus has assigned to me, which is to faithfully preach the wonderful news of God’s grace.”

2 Timothy 4:7 TPT“I have fought an excellent fight. I have finished my full course with all my might, and I’ve kept my heart full of faith.”

Galatians 6:15 TPT“Circumcision doesn’t mean a thing to me. The only thing that really matters is living by the transforming power of this wonderful new creation life.”

Philippians 1:6 TPT“I pray with great faith for you, because I’m fully convinced that the one who began this gracious work in you will faithfully continue the process of maturing you until the unveiling of your union with Jesus Christ!”

Hebrews 12:2 AMPC“Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection].”

Setting the Stage:

I come from a world that taught me to start strong. My mother taught me the immigrant work ethic. Brooklyn taught me how to hustle. The Army taught me discipline. But nobody taught me how to FINISH. For years, I pushed through on willpower, grit, and determination. But sometimes, human ability is just not enough. If you rely on human ability alone, sometimes you do finish, but you finish on fumes, and you wind up losing your grip on other things while you are pursuing one thing. In other words, you can get great mentors, read a lot of books, and get all the external motivation you want, but at the end of the day, human ability can never match God’s ability, which is called grace. 

I’ve learned a lot in my almost three decades of walking with God, but one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is that the same grace that calls you to an assignment carries you through the assignment and across the finish line. I do not finish on fumes anymore. I finish on grace. On this final day of our journey through the book of Galatians, let me show you what that means to me and you.

So, what does this mean for you today? A few things.

1. I Don’t Finish On Fumes. I Finish On Grace.

Notice what Paul does NOT say in Galatians 6:9. He does not say you will never get tired. He says do not allow yourself to be weary or disheartened, FOR the season of reaping is coming. The harvest is not a maybe. It is a guarantee with a date on it that God already set. Here is what grace taught me about weariness: it shows up whenever I start doing God’s work in my own strength. Working FOR God will wear you out. Working WITH God, in His strength, is how you run and not grow weary. The harvest does not depend on YOUR hustle. It depends on HIS faithfulness.

How this applies to you:

— Galatians 6:9 TPT says, “the season of reaping the wonderful harvest you’ve planted is coming!” Not might come. Is coming. Due season is already on God’s calendar, and your breakthrough does not need your anxiety to arrive on time.

— Due season is God’s responsibility; refusing to quit is yours.

— Some of you are not weary because of the devil. You are weary because you are simply doing too much. There is a generation that wears burnout like a badge of honor, but exhaustion is not anointing. You were not designed to live worn out.

— Isaiah 40:31 AMPC says those who wait for the Lord “shall change and renew their strength… they shall run and not be weary.” The Hebrew picture is an exchange. You hand God your limited strength, and He hands you His unlimited strength. That is a trade you should make every single morning.

— People ask me how I have written Today’s Word five days a week since December 1997. The answer is not discipline. Discipline runs out somewhere around year three. The answer is grace. I have been carried by an empowerment that is not my own, and that is the only reason you are reading message number 214 in this series right now.

— I learned how to work at 13 years old. I worked for my uncle 12 hours a day, six days a week, 72 hours for $150. I do not mind hard work. It is in me. But working by grace is a completely different way to live. You are not wearing yourself out trying to make it happen. You are working WITH God, relying on His strength, and the work gets done without the burnout.

— You cannot lose this race unless you stop running it. You may look like you are losing right now, but looking like you are losing and losing are not the same thing. If you refuse to quit and you embrace God’s grace to keep going, what looks like a failure today will turn into an overwhelming victory tomorrow. And here is the amazing part. Jesus said a mother in labor forgets the anguish once the baby arrives (John 16:21). Victory has a way of erasing the memory of the pain it took to get there.

— Weariness is a signal, not a sentence. When you feel it, do not quit the assignment. You should check your power source. You have probably drifted from working WITH God to working FOR God, and the fix is not a vacation. The fix is reconnection.

— Matthew 11:28 TPT says, “Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden? Then come to me.” Jesus did not say push harder. He said come. Grace can do more through a rested you than the flesh can do through an exhausted you.

— Walk into today strain-free and stress-free. The victory is sweatless when the strength is His. Do not quit before the harvest! God’s grace is on you to keep going and to finish strong. 

2. Jesus Finished His Assignment, So I Can Finish Mine.

The greatest finish in human history happened on a hill called Calvary. After everything Jesus came to do was done, He said three words: “It is finished!” The Greek word is tetelestai, a marketplace term that means PAID IN FULL. Jesus was not announcing His defeat. He was announcing His completion. The assignment was over, the debt was settled, and there was nothing left undone. Then He ascended and sat down at the right hand of the Father, not because He was tired, but because He was done. And here is what changed the way I finish: the Finisher Himself lives in me.

How this applies to you:

— Jesus did not say, “I am finished.” He said, “IT is finished.” He was not quitting. He was announcing the completion of the mission.

— Jesus sat down, not because He was tired, but because He was done. You have to learn to discern when something is done in your life so you can mark it complete and move on to the next thing. 

— The same Jesus who finished His assignment now lives in you. Galatians 2:20 says Christ lives His life through you. That means finishing is in your spiritual DNA, because the Spirit of a Finisher lives in you.

— Acts 20:24 TPT says Paul’s one priority was to “fulfill my mission and finish the ministry my Lord Jesus has assigned to me, which is to faithfully preach the wonderful news of God’s grace.” Did you catch that? The assignment Paul refused to leave unfinished was the message of GRACE. It is the same assignment I have been on for 214 messages.

— Quitting is not your inheritance; finishing is.

— 2 Timothy 4:7 TPT records Paul’s final report: “I have fought an excellent fight. I have finished my full course with all my might, and I’ve kept my heart full of faith.” Paul got to say those words at the end of his life. Live in a way that lets you say them at the end of yours. Fought. Finished. Full of faith. This is the mindset we must live with. 

— Walk into today knowing your assignment is supposed to end the same way His did. Not with “I gave up.” But with “It is finished.”

3. Grace Gets The Final Word In My Story.

Look at how Paul ends the letter: “May the wonderful grace of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, be with your spirit.” He opened Galatians with grace in chapter 1, and he closes it with grace in chapter 6. Grace is the first word, and grace is the last word, and everything in between is held together by grace. That is not just the structure of the letter. It is the structure of your life. You were saved by grace, you have been carried by grace, and when your story closes, grace will get the final word. The accuser does not get the last word. Your failures do not get the last word. Grace does.

How this applies to you:

— Of all the ways Paul could have ended this letter, he chose one more word of grace, sent straight to your spirit, the real you.

— Every assignment you have ever received from God has started by grace (unearned, unmerited, and undeserved). If you finish the assignment, you will also finish by grace.

— Philippians 1:6 TPT says, “the one who began this gracious work in you will faithfully continue the process.” God does not abandon projects. What He starts, He finishes, and He started something in you. This means that He is committed to releasing grace in you and over you until the job is done. This also means that you must be committed to receiving that same grace by faith. 

— Hebrews 12:2 AMPC calls Jesus the Source of our faith, “and is also its Finisher.” Jesus is not just the Author of your story. He is the Finisher of it. The same hands that wrote your first chapter are already holding your last one.

— God wrote my first chapter by grace, and the last chapter will be grace-filled too. In short, my life is a grace case!

— Galatians 6:15 TPT says the only thing that really matters is “this wonderful new creation life.” At the end of it all, the scorecards of religion mean nothing. What matters is what God made you in Christ. You are a new creation, and that is enough.

— Walk into today knowing how your story ends. Not with condemnation. Not with regret. But with grace. The final word over your life has already been spoken, and the word is GRACE.

A Farewell To This Series:

Before I close, I have to stop and say thank you.

We started this journey through Galatians almost a year ago, in the summer of 2025. We walked through the book verse-by-verse, every single verse of all six chapters, and with the recaps and these final messages, this is message number 214. Five days a week, for nearly a year, in one book. I have never gone this deep in one book for this long, and honestly, this series changed me as much as it changed anyone reading it.

Look at what God did in us. Grace changed the way I see God. The Judge I feared became the Father I love. Grace changed the way I see myself. The sinner trying to qualify became a righteous son and a new creation. Grace changed the way I receive. Performance became faith, and faith learned to rest. Grace changed the way I handle pressure. “Woe is me” became “Whoa, it’s me!” Grace changed the way I see my purpose. I stopped building a destiny and started discovering one. And grace changed the way I finish. I no longer run on fumes. I run on grace.

If I had to give you all 214 messages in one sentence, it would be this: You were saved by grace, you live by grace, and you will finish by grace, because Jesus paid it all, and IT’S ALREADY DONE!

Father, thank You for every revelation, every morning, and every word of this journey. And to you, my Today’s Word family, thank you for walking through Galatians with me. You showed up morning after morning, and I do not take that for granted.

We are not slowing down. On Monday, we launch a brand-new series for THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY called “Discovering Destiny.” God made plans for you before the foundation of the world, and He planned people like Moses, David, Rahab, and Paul before they were born, despite every mistake they would ever make. I start a new series on Monday, and you don’t want to miss it. Thank you, and I love you. 

Declaration of Faith:

Father, I thank You for every truth You taught me through Galatians!

I will not grow weary, because my harvest is coming in due season!

I do not run on fumes. I run on grace!

Due season is Your responsibility, and refusing to quit is mine!

Jesus said, “It is finished,” so I will finish!

The Finisher lives in me, and finishing is in my spiritual DNA!

I am a new creation, and that is all that matters!

Jesus is the Author of my faith, and Jesus is the Finisher of it!

Grace wrote my first chapter, and grace will write my last one!

I started by grace, I will finish by grace, and GREATER IS COMING FOR ME!

I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen!

This is Today’s Word. Apply it and prosper!