You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.
- C.S. Lewis
I'm not sure yet what I will title this when I finish writing it, so in case I go with a different tittle than I am leaning toward or to confirm you read it right if I do use it, I will make sure we're starting from the same place either way and say for the record that God is NOT faithful. WAIT!!
Don't start cursing me and the ministry as heretical just yet. Don't start writing the angry e-mail to tell me how wrong and evil I am and what the B-I-B-L-E says about God being Faithful. I know what the scriptures say about God's faithfulness. Let me save you some time and say look at Psalm 33:4-5 which basically says God keeps His word and completes all He starts (His work) and does that work in truth, which means it doesn't appear to be done - it is done, it is not partially done or half heartedly done - it is perfectly, honestly 100% done. Which is what perfect faithfulness would look like.
So what on earth am I talking about? I realize I better start explaining before I lose the small audience that I have. The question of is God faithful or is He not is not quite as cut and dry as we sometimes make it. Yes, I know and understand the Bible says He is faithful period; there are no excuses or exceptions. He simply is. I get it. In fact I could turn this into a list of about 40 or 50 verses that state that He is and how He is faithful. But so what?
If you don't believe that God is faithful than me quoting a bunch of scripture is probably not going to change that. If you do believe God is faithful it is important I direct your attention from what you think you know to how He is not faithful. Yes. It is important. It is crucial to our spiritual life and relationship. To be faithful means to be trustworthy.
Faithful: 1. strict or thorough in the performance of duty: a faithful worker. 2. true to one's word, promises, vows, etc. 3. steady in allegiance or affection; loyal; constant: faithful friends. 4. reliable, trusted, or believed. 5. adhering or true to fact, a standard, or an original; accurate: a faithful account.
These are the definitions of what it means to be faithful other than the final application which means to be full of faith and applies more to those who believe in the faithfulness of God than serves to describe said faithfulness. If God is truly, wholly and perfectly faithful as we say with about as much meaning and thought as saying bless you after a sneeze, then He must not cheat or cut corners or fall short in any way shape, form or fashion in completing and performing His duties, He has to always be totally and completely true in what He says and must always do what He says He will do, He can not be fickle in affection or loyalty. If He says He loves us, He must do so forever. He must be constant in relationship. He must be 100% reliable to do every bit of what we just said, and we must always be able to totally trust His word. And the standards and spiritual laws that He has declared to rule by and to have made must indeed always and completely be lived up to and honored. An inch is an inch is an inch, the standard can not change as He can not change and lessen in any way.
That's a lot to live up to in order to be declared faithful. It's also why if I hear a Christian describe himself or herself as faithful to God I pretty much ignore the rest of what comes out of their mouth because I know that they are either liars or confused. None are righteous. No. Not even one. And you can't be faithful without being righteous. Because faithful boils down to meaning perfect and true.
Well, that's pretty black and white. Either God is perfect and true or He is not. Either God is or isn't faithful. It isn't iffy or something that can really hard to define as implied above. That's just it though. It really depends on the question.
God is perfect and and true. He is faithful. He is faithful to His word. He is faithful to speak truth and do what He says. He is faithful in relationship with us. He is faithful to the standard. He is faithful to His duties and job description. He is worthy of our trust.
The reason I am not quoting a lot of scriptures, which is what most sites do if you Google God is faithful, is because if you do not trust God, then you can not trust the Bible. If you don't trust God to keep His word to you, how can you possibly trust that His word has been accurately inspired by the Spirit to men, written down, passed down, translated and re-translated for thousands of years and the truth of it remains? You can't.
In order to trust someone, you have to know them. You can have the beginning of trust, but it must be developed through deepening relationship. Leah trusted me some when we first got together. I think that now, after over 6 years, she trusts me more. I have shown myself faithful to her, by human standards anyway. I am not a perfectly faithful husband any more than I am a perfectly faithful child of God. I nearly gave her a heart attack yesterday, literally I had her digging for her nitro, because I forget to take her depth perception and comfort levels into account when I drive. But she trusts me more than not.
So am I a faithful husband?
If by faithful you mean am I hers and hers alone physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually when it comes to romantic relationships, that I want her and none other, then yes. I am faithful to her.
If on the other hand your idea of a faithful husband is a man who likes everything his wife likes and dislikes everything that she dislikes, then no. No. No. I am not a faithful husband. And the same is true of God.
God is perfect and true to His standard, which is faithful to never change. He is not faithful to what you and I think His standard is or should be; He is faithful to His word, but He is not remotely obligated to be true to fulfill what someone else says His word is. He is faithful to what He said He would do, not to what we want Him to do.
If you think God being faithful to His believers and children means that will never experience sickness, pain, physical and material need or discomfort again, you will be sorely disappointed and discover that God is not faithful. He is not faithful to that crap, and no matter how many American preachers teach it, He will not become faithful in it because His standard doesn't change. I'm sorry, but it is not true that the faithfulness of God means that if you give God ten percent of your income you will never have financial or material shortage, all your bills will be paid and your belly will stay full. If you give 10% to God, it doesn't mean you will have plenty to meet your other financial obligations.
Yes, sometimes it works that way. The widow gave the last of her oil to the prophet and had enough for the rest of the famine, but that doesn't mean if you give the last of your cooking oil to a preacher you won't have to go to the store and buy some more. Let's get one thing straight on this. You can't give 10% of your income to God if you are a real Christian, because if you are real then you have given yourself, all of you, the good and the bad, to Him to do with as He wills. That means it's not your income. It's His. Everything we have belongs to Him, and He's allowing us to steward, manage and use it with His guidance and within His will. That means if He says give 10%, give it. It's His. If He says give 100% to someone who need it more, then we do that. It's His. But obedience financially does not mean there will be financial profit or even enough.
He is faithful to heal and restore, but that doesn't mean that no Christian will spend their physical life in a wheelchair or won't die of cancer. And if you think that is what it means, then God will appear unfaithful. He has promised to meet our needs, but there are Christians today who will die from lack of food, water, shelter and medicine. So if you think God is faithful means you will never fail to have health and the basic material needs to sustain life, you're going to see God as very unfaithful. Because we will all, every one, come to a point where we do not have something we need to sustain physical life and not get it. If that were not true then this existence would be the eternal and there would never be a Christian funeral. Think about it.
But it is important to know that God is faithful, because if He is not then there is no point in being a Christian and no hope in faith. It is critical because it is indeed life and death. If God is not faithful to forgive then we will have to face judgment and all is lost. If He is not faithful to keep us then we can lose our salvation based on performance and all is lost. If He is not faithful to finish what He started then we have to finish what He won't, doesn't. or can't, and since we can't make ourselves righteous, all is lost. If He is not faithful to love us always and to never leave us then all is lost. If He is not faithful to make what happens in our life take us closer to Him and make us more like Him and give us spiritual and eternal life worth living than sacrificing our self is stupid, oh, and all is lost.
But He is faithful to do those things. He is faithful to be our Comfort and our Strength when we let Him. He is faithful to love us and keep us and give us life an make us like Him and meet our every eternal need. Sometimes making sure the bills are paid will help us get to where we need to be spiritually and help us be of service to love, so He will be faithful to provide the money we need. But sometimes it may be better for us spiritually to understand lack and homelessness and we may need a less comfortable path to get where we need to be spiritually. If that is the case, then He is faithful to be with us as we lose our lights, and even our home.
It may sound like I'm hedging, but I am not. God is faithful to meet our needs the way a loving father does, but He is not faithful to meet what we think we need. Once more, I use my niece as an example. When she was three she thought what she needed was to stop hurting and be spared the pain of needles. What her loving parents understood was what she really needed for life was insulin, so no matter how she cried or pleaded they poked her and made her bleed to get her blood sugar levels and they shot her with needles of insulin to maintain the balance needed for healthy life. And while we are using that example, we may not understand it, but somehow the deepest, richest, fullest possible relationship my niece can have with God will be enabled because of what she has experienced as a Type 1 diabetic, and God healing her pancreas at three would have denied her something better, and more comforting and more beautiful.
God is faithful. He is faithful to love you. He is faithful to bring you closer and closer to Himself. He is faithful to finish making us like Him. He is faithful to let what Jesus did erase our debts and make us right with Him. He is faithful to His word. He is just not faithful to our messed up, selfish, non-eternal ideas on His word is or should be.
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