Faithfulness
It’s funny how one word can spark two entirely different emotions. When faithfulness is brought up, immediately our mind conjures up a plethora of things that have more to do with the antonym of this beautiful inspiring word, than anything truly inspiring about the word itself.
If I were to ask you to name five instances of faithfulness, I bet you would have a hard time doing so. You would almost have to resort to Biblical stories to come up with enough examples. At the same time I could ask you to name five instances of unfaithfulness and you would ask me if I wanted the recent ones or the past ones.
I do not say all of this, to be funny nor am I trying to make anyone feel bad. I am saying this because we often tend to dwell on the unfaithful over the faithful.
We know and will say with absolute assuredness that God is good, yet when His breath of change blows over us, we resist steadfast with unbending fortitude. We have a hard time believing that God is faithful. You might say, Oh that’s not me! I know God is faithful. Most of us feel pretty comfortable with our belief that God is faithful until something happens beyond our control. Then we run kicking and screaming to whomever will listen, asking where are you God? Why have you allowed this? How are you going to fix this? How come I have to walk through this?
Life happens
Who hasn’t heard this more times than we can count?
“Life does happen to us all, it’s who we choose to Glorify that makes all the difference.”
You might say when bad stuff happens that God is unfaithful to you, you might not come right out and say that, but if honest, it is what you really mean. For God to be any other way than faithful is to accuse Him of unfaithfulness.
If you say God, Where are You? Why are You? How come You allowed? This actually reveals our deeper feeling of mistrust toward God. I’m not saying you can’t ask God about anything. That’s a great thing to do, take everything to Him in prayer. Just don’t go to God in mistrust or accusation. It’s really the root of our heart, when asking those things that is in question. Usually we ask these kinds of questions rooted in fear, doubt, unbelief and sometimes regrettably, anger.
In understanding the word faithfulness you have to examine what you believe about it to begin with.
What does it mean to you to be faithful?
Who can say with complete sincerity that you are faithful every single day, 100 % of the time?
Any takers?
Yet God is faithful over all of us every single day without fail.
Psalms 145:15-16 The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest thine hand, and satisfies the desire of every living thing
Matthew 6: 25-34 Demonstrates God’s providential care over all of us each day.
Yet we doubt and complain and murmur anyway.
Who is really the unfaithful one?
Yet God is Always Faithful
“I’m glad He remains faithful even when I do not!”
Three Ways God has proven His faithfulness
There are so many ways it would be impossible to list all of them so I am only highlighting three.
Let’s start with this verse so that we can understand exactly what God has done for us.
I John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness
1) God shows His faithfulness in us by forgiving us of all our sins. This is such a huge thing for God to do for us. It shows that God, who created all things, became a willing participant in man to redeem us from the curse that we brought about. Yet we see here that God said He is faithful to forgive. This means that when you ask Him it’s a done deal. Don’t bring it up again. To do so means that you are questioning the faithfulness of God.
Psalms 89: 33 Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.
2) We see here that God has reminded us that His faithfulness does not fail. If you read the next verse it talks about a covenant He made. If you know anything about covenants you know they cannot be broken. Unlike contracts which can be altered or broken covenants are for life. So God is saying here that I made a covenant with you that my faithfulness will not fail. So it can’t be altered nor broken. That should cause great rejoicing in all of us. This is a beautiful Psalm to read and I challenge you to do so.
My last point is about trust.
Hebrews 13:5 Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
3) This perhaps is my favorite verse in the entire Bible. I think about the days when God seems so far away and I recall this verse. I would venture to say that if you anchor yourself on this one verse, the issue of God’s faithfulness over you becomes obsolete. Our doubt, fear and confusion about our life stems from the underlying issue of trust.
Is God who He says He is? Can you answer that sincerely? If you can say yes assuredly, I applaud you. You have surpassed many of us who still struggle with the day to day, who struggle with the question, is God faithful?
When it boils down to the bottom line to say Yes, God I know you are faithful. We have to realize that even when, especially when everything is falling apart, He is always faithful. He’s not trying to hurt us or confuse us in any way. He simple wants your complete trust.
“Trust is a building block to Faithfulness!”
The bottom line is this; the choice is yours. God is either faithful to you or He is not. Once you have made this a resolute truth within your heart, your life will begin to change in ways you cannot imagine.
Just as in relationships with others, trust is the key building block in the foundation. If you have no trust you will have no relationship unless it’s a very shaky one at best.
God is faithful. He is faithfulness personified. He can’t be anything otherwise. It’s time we really believe it and put it in to practice in our lives.
When we do we will have built our house upon a rock and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it!
I’m hid with Christ!
Shawn
Searching Gods Heart 