![[Photo of a Scripture verse]](https://www.deankwilson.com/Blog_images/1_Corinthians_15_24.jpg)
Have you ever labored hard and long on a difficult assignment, finally completed the task, and then felt enormous relief that what you set out to accomplish you have finished?
I once labored to develop a deeply detailed procedure for the protection of department stores against damage by fire and allied perils. It was an assignment that no one else wanted. There was nothing intriguing about department stores. They were not as “cool” as oil refineries or pulp and paper manufacturing, or automobile plants, or food processing, or just about any of the hundreds of other types of facilities that the insurance company for which I worked happened to insure.
But, my career had often been like that. I seemed to attract the facilities that no one else wanted to serve: department stores, hospitals, colleges and universities, radio and television broadcast facilities, tanneries, glue factories, paint manufacturing, museums, arenas, furniture manufacturing, computer data centers, electronics manufacturers, and so forth.
To further complicate my assignment regarding department stores, the Senior Vice President of Engineering, to whom I reported, had a technique where he would go to the company library and check out key resources that his staff might need to complete their tasks. He intended to make us work harder and, in his mind, more thoroughly to complete our assignments. It was a stupid tactic. There’s no other way to describe it. As someone who later in my career became a manager of a relatively large number of people, I learned from this foolishness and devoted myself to making certain I always provided my staff with all of the resources they might need to effectively complete their tasks.
It took six drafts over the course of 18 months to finally gain approval for my detailed procedures. Ironically, the sixth draft was simply the very first draft resubmitted with a new date and a slightly differently worded introductory paragraph. Of course, I had ten or twelve other projects during this same time frame. But, this was an enormous learning experience for me. I lost all respect for this Senior Vice President. His techniques were roadblocks—and not just for me. When he retired, his replacement, who had also worked for him, changed things dramatically for the better.
Nevertheless, when that procedure for department stores rolled off the presses, I felt as if a great burden had lifted. I had been handed an assignment and I eventually handed it back to the one who had given it to me as a completed task.
The Apostle Paul described the torture, death, and resurrection of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, as seen at the end of history, in startlingly similar terms to the example I have outlined above. Please take note of Paul’s words—speaking of Jesus—as recorded in 1 Corinthians 15:24:
Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.
God the Father sent His one and only Son, Jesus, to earth in order to walk in our shoes and become flesh that through Him we might become the children of God. Jesus conquered sin, death, and Satan through His death and resurrection. Jesus ushered in His Kingdom here on earth. We now inhabit that Kingdom because we belong to Him. As His ambassadors, we now testify about Him—who He is and what He has done.
At the end of this age, Jesus will return the Kingdom to the Father. All sin and darkness will be cast into the lake of fire. Only the perfection of Jesus’ holiness will remain. We who belong to Him will be fully transformed into His image. On that day, we will all rejoice.
As we launch out into this new day, let’s not forget that we are moving on a pathway through history where Jesus has opened up a way to heaven, that the Holy Spirit urges us and helps us along that pathway, and that the Father waits to welcome us. May this reality make our hearts become filled with great joy and carry us through the task before us.
