I am continuing with the Fruit of the Spirit series In case you missed them, you can find them here...
And now for FAITHFULNESS
Greetings
dear one! How are you? We are well, and it is with great joy that I am able to
write another letter to you.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and
self-control.
Galations 5:22
Today we
are learning what it means to be faithful or have faithfulness. So what is
faithfulness? It’s the act of being loyal, constant and steadfast. When God is
faithful to us, He is always there – in every situation and in every
circumstance. His love for us is constant. When we are faithful to God, we are
loyal to Him in every situation and every circumstance. We are obedient to His
commands no matter what.
There are
many Bible verses that tell us God is faithful to us. I love the imagery of
Psalm 36:5.
Your
love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.
Can you
even imagine that? Go look at the sky and then imagine God’s faithfulness
reaching that high – His love reaching through to the heavens. It’s pretty
amazing.
Another
verse I love is Psalm 86:15
But
you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in
love and faithfulness.
Other
verses like Joshua 24:14 tell us that we should be faithful.
Now
fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness.
And verses
like 1 Samuel 26:23 suggest that we will be rewarded for our faithfulness.
The
Lord rewards everyone for their righteousness and faithfulness.
Being
faithful requires effort and work. It’s easy to be faithful when we are happy,
but much harder when things happen that make us wonder if God really loves us.
Sometimes life is hard and we are sad or angry or confused about what is
happening. But God still wants us to be faithful to Him, just as He is faithful
to us.
I’ll leave
you with my favorite verse about God’s faithfulness – this one is good enough
to memorize, so I encourage you to hide this in your heart.
If
we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and
purify us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9
Because
God is faithful to us, we need to be faithful (loyal, constant and steadfast)
to Him.
