“I Must Complete My Assignment”

Scripture: "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work." -John 9:4

Within the past couple of days, I have been placed in a position where I have had to complete an assignment fairly quickly. The assignment called for me to help out my branch chief and one of my senior colleagues to merge two PowerPoint presentations into one, with a common color scheme, add pagination to the slides, and incorporate the corrections from other staff members. The reason why this assignment had to be completed because the Division is giving a presentation to a committee on today. Through my skills of manipulating PowerPoint, God has blessed me to complete the assignment in time for today's presentation. If truth were told, God has given each of you an assignment that is due. It's on you, my brother, and my sister, to complete your assignment before your time runs out. Today's text emphasizes this point.

Our main scripture for today is located in the Gospel account according to John. Within this Gospel account, Jesus was brought on the scene without mentioning any Nativity stories or denoting His lineage. John established that Jesus was in the beginning when the world was created. John does this by writing, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" and "The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst men". As the "Word" dwelt among flesh, He performed many miracles and healed many people. Within Chapter 9, He is on the scene healing and dealing with the mouths of the Pharisees. As Jesus was healing, He made a critical point that drives us to today's topic.

He begins the text by saying, "I must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day." In other words, Jesus said He must complete His assignment. Jesus knew that He had ministering to do, He knew that He had healing to do, He knew that He had a death to endure, He knew that He had to rise again, but He also knew that He had to do it in the appointed time set by His Father! Brothers and sisters, God has set some great assignments inside of you, He has set some great skills and gifts inside of you; however, you are sitting on these gifts! You are sitting on your talents and what God is asking of you on today is to complete your assignment while there's time to do so!

Jesus presses the point of completing His assignment through the conclusion of the text. He says, "the night cometh, when no man can work". As we continue to work for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, there will be a night time down the road! There will come a season where the opportunity to work will be stopped. My prayer for you and for me, is that when the season of "night" comes, our work will be complete and the Father will be pleased.

In closing, suppose Jesus did not complete His assignment on Earth, where would you be and where would I be? I know the answer: NOT AROUND! If our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ took time to complete His assignment, worked the work while it was day, why are we not doing the same? Let's focus on working the works He has placed in us! Let's focus on completing our assignments!