Finish it off

Having worked in construction I understand both sides of the builder-homeowner saga. I have been the guy wanting the contractor to return to finish a job they started, and I have also been the guy who someone was waiting on. I hated the feeling of knowing I could go finish a job, but had others in the way. Permits were usually the problem, waiting on permits or inspections meant we either have guys standing around doing nothing, or we take them to another job and put them to work. Usually the latter was the solution.
How about in your life? Since your conversion and that moment you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior have you finished everything? There are things that are part of a sinner's lifestyle that cannot be a part of a believer's life. There are things that we do in the flesh because we live in the flesh, that should not happen once we are living in the Spirit. But, unfortunately it all too often does, and it is because we didn't finish the cleaning process.
When you accept Christ as Savior, you start a process that cleans up your life and your habits. But, there are so many that we let slide and don't take care of right away and they linger, and eventually they will come back to bite you. You'll find a time when things aren't great, when everything is not going your way, and you will stumble. Many times what we stumble on is the remnants of an old sin that we used to struggle with. I had a friend who struggled with pornography, he accepted Christ and lit a fire in his backyard burning everything that even remotely reminded him of the nasty habit. Then, he was preparing to move and when he was packing up he found an old magazine, he opened it up and looked and felt those old feelings of temptation take over and eventually fell right back into it's grasp. Why? Because he didn't finish the deal, and even after he didn't finish it he should not have opened that magazine.
"When Israel became strong, they pressed the Canaanites into forced labor but never drove them out completely" (Judg 1:28-29).
The Israelites had been told by God numerous times to get rid of the Canaanites completely but instead they kept them as slaves. In doing so they did not follow GOd's commands on this and eventually stumbled several times as a nation because they did not get rid of them completely. It's the same way with our sins, we can't just shove them in a closet or under a bed and say that they are gone. We must spend much time in prayer and preparation and remove them completely. We need to finish the job and clean up the entire life, not just areas of it.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!