Do I have your attention with this juicy title?

My real subject is God himself; and in learning who God is, it is helpful to analyze recurring themes in Scripture. One of the recurring themes is faithfulness. Although we can be faithful to a principle, we can best understand faithfulness in the context of relationships. Relationships are critical to our spiritual walk. Starting with the Holy Trinity, we see that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit function in relationship with each other.

We learn from Isaiah that God created man for his glory. “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth—everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” (Isaiah 43:6b-7). We also know from Galatians that God created man to be in his family; in fact, his design is that as sons and daughters of God the father, we would be brothers and sisters in and with Christ. “I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:18).

Faith is paramount in our own spiritual walk; not faith in God’s creation, but faith in God himself. The object of faith is the person of God, so faith is intertwined with relationship. It sounds easy enough, but it’s so essential to our relationship that we must get this right. What do we know about faith? The word “faith” is used 458 times in the NIV so I won’t refer to every passage, but here are a few to illustrate this principle:

• God is faithful to us. “But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness” (Psalm 86:15).
•  God requires faithfulness of us. “Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place” (Psalm 51:6).
• It is faith that is required for our justification. “For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law” (Romans 3:28).
• Even so, we don’t seem to have enough. “If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?”  (Matthew 6:30).
• Oh, but what we could accomplish if only: “…Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” Matthew 17:20).

Speaking of faith, then, we should begin to see how critically important it is for us to be faithful to God; and when it comes to being faithful to God, we quickly learn that bring faithful to God implies prioritization and even exclusivity. God would not perceive us as being faithful if we didn’t put him first, and if we didn’t exclusively love Him as our one and only God. So he has helped us again by giving us the concept of marriage to show us what faithfulness looks like. This may be why he created the institution of marriage in Genesis and upholds it throughout the Bible.

As helpful as it is to see marriage as a picture of faithfulness, sadly it might be even more helpful to understand what faithfulness is not. We know that adultery is the most obvious example of unfaithfulness in marriage. God gave us the explicit commandment forbidding adultery in Exodus 20:14: “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14).

In addition to the many references in the wisdom literature of Proverbs to adultery as the path to foolishness, there are others that are actually historical references using adultery as the metaphor. For example:

“Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. They quickly turned from the ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient to the Lord’s commands” (Judges 2:17).

“During the reign of King Josiah, the Lord said to me, ‘Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every spreading tree and has committed adultery there’” (Jeremiah 3:6).

“Then in the nations where they have been carried captive, those who escape will remember me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts, which have turned away from me, and by their eyes, which have lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their detestable practices” (Ezekiel 6:9).

“When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, ‘Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord’” (Hosea 1:2).

Malachi really sums it all up when he writes: ^“Judah has been unfaithful. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the Lord loves by marrying women who worship a foreign god. As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the Lord remove him from the tents of Jacob—even though he brings an offering to the Lord Almighty” (Malachi 2:11-12).

I don’t believe anyone would think that there’s anything good about adultery. It makes my face burn with shame to think that God compares my seeking after other things—whether for worship, for enjoyment, for provision, or to be praised–as spiritual adultery! This doesn’t mean that we can’t take pleasure in God’s creation; He created everything for our enjoyment. It just means that we can’t fail to give Him the glory and thanksgiving. Stop here, click on this wonderful psalm of praise, and read it aloud: Psalm 100.

I think that we as believers desire to be faithful, but we don’t always know how, or what it looks like. By using the picture of marriage and the opposite picture of unfaithfulness or adultery, both of which are common life experiences for us, we can hopefully learn how to be faithful and how to avoid spiritual adultery, which I know none of us desires. It’s really simple (notice I said simple; I didn’t say easy). Faithfulness requires single-minded devotion to God, always putting Him first, and looking only to Him for our joy and contentment. And yes, we will mess it all up sometimes, just as David did (read 2 Samuel 11:1 to 12:23). However, God in his mercy will also forgive us if we sincerely confess, repent, and seek his forgiveness (read Psalm 51).

One of my favorite scriptures, indeed one of my favorite things to look forward to in Heaven is when Jesus (the Bridegroom), takes the Church (all of us, his Bride) in marriage at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:6-9. What a day of rejoicing that will be!!

May this now and forever be our prayer:

”I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 3:20).

In Christ,

Judy