“Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.” (Psalm 100:4-5). 

“The saying is trustworthy…. if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself. (2 Timothy 2:11-13). 

What a gift we have in the faithfulness of God! The Bible is filled with examples and testimonies to God’s faithfulness, from Genesis to Revelation. 

• “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19).  
• “For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. Every single action God takes is sure and steady. Every word He speaks is always good and true (Psalm 33:4). 
• “And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’ he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true’” (Revelations 21:5). 

Our God is great! Our God is good! And our God is faithful! His faithfulness is foundational to all his other attributes. We can count on God to always prove his attributes. His promises never fail. As you can imagine, there are many Scriptures testifying to the faithfulness of God. Here is a useful source. 

Faith is one of the primary Bible words used to describe our spiritual life; but just what does it mean? 

Some similar words to describe faith are belief, trust, confidence. Biblically, faith is believing in something we cannot see. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). The Bible is full of examples of people who were faithful. Hebrews 11 is known as the “Hall of Fame of Faith.” These heroes of the Bible lived faithfully to God, and even “though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised…” (11:39). In other words, they never saw the promised Messiah, unlike we who have lived since the first coming of Christ “since God had provided something better for us” (11:40).  

So, if that is how we can understand what faith means, then what does faithful/faithfulness mean? 

Faith in God is impossible without the supernatural gifting of this fruit of the Spirit. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8)— In other words, God, through the Holy Spirit, provides the means for us to believe when we accept Jesus into our hearts as our savior. Thanks be to God for this amazing gift.  

Faith is a gift from God, and faithfulness is a spiritual gift, meaning that it is bestowed on us when we give our hearts to him and accept Christ as our Savior. But faith is not once and done, and this is extremely important.  

In 2 Peter 2:5-7, Peter writes “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.”  Peter is giving us instructions, and we must make every effort to obey these instructions. Why is this so important? Because disobedience is sin. 

“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices / as much as in obeying the Lord? / To obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Samuel 15:22). When God tells us to do something, then we must make every effort to do that thing. We must obey with our hearts, not by just going through the outward motions. When we ignore God’s instructions for our lives, at first our conscious might be tinged with remorse; however, when we continue to disobey, it becomes easier. In other word, our hearts become hardened to God’s will. Believe me, brothers and sisters in Christ, this is not a place we want to find ourselves. “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness” (Hebrews 3:13).  

The website Got Questions provides a good explanation of why we must be concerned about our obedience: “Sin causes hearts to grow hard, especially continual and unrepentant sin. Now we know that ‘if we confess our sins, [Jesus] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins” (1 John 1:9). However, if we don’t confess our sins, they have a cumulative and desensitizing effect on the conscience, making it difficult to even distinguish right from wrong. And this sinful and hardened heart is tantamount to the ‘seared conscience’ Paul speaks of in 1 Timothy 4:1–2. Scripture makes it clear that if we relentlessly continue to engage in sin, there will come a time when God will give us over to our “debased mind” and let us have it our way. The apostle Paul writes about God’s wrath of abandonment in his letter to the Romans where we see that godless and wicked ‘men who suppress the truth’ are eventually given over to the sinful desires of their hardened hearts (Romans 1:18–24).” Like I said, this is not where we want to find ourselves! 

To circle back around, God’s faithfulness means that he, our Righteous God, will always do what he says he will do. And Jesus said, “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me” (John 6:38). And when we emulate this attribute of faithfulness, then we make every effort to obey God’s instructions and follow God’s will. We do this not for salvation, because that is also God’s gift to us. We are faithful out of gratitude for our salvation and out of love for God who loved us first. 

“Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands” (Deuteronomy 7:9). 

In Christ, 

Judy 

Great Is Thy Faithfulness (from Lamentations 3:23)