I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

At my mom’s memorial service on Friday, I was able to say a few words to honor her. While I was going through some of her bills and bank statements following her first stroke, I came across a note she had written just before Christmas last year. In this handwritten prayer she told of how she first came to faith in Christ and when and where she was later baptized and then she expressed her dependence on Christ again for her salvation as she wanted to finish this life well.

The first few verses of the tenth chapter of 1 Corinthians continue Paul’s thoughts on finishing well by providing us with a clear picture of a group of people who clearly experienced the power of God in their lives. Those Israelites who walked through the Red Sea, ate manna, and saw water come from a rock, ultimately failed to finish well because of their lack of faith.

I was reminded again last week that each one of us is growing older and before the end of this century each will have reached the end of days on this planet.

How do you intend to finish? The writer of Hebrews encourages us to be “not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls” (Hebrews 10: 39).