Faithful is He that calleth you, Who also will do it. 1 Thessalonians 5:24
If we want to look for them, there are plenty of excuses for a Christian to be discouraged these days. We try to be honest and fair with people, but we see those around us who take advantage of others and who cheat seeming to get ahead the most in life. We try to be kind and generous to others, but we encounter people who are thankless and disrespectful. We pray for the salvation of our loved ones and encounter rejection and apathy. We try to help out in the Assembly and get accused of wrong motives. We have some ideas for a Gospel outreach but nobody else agrees with us. Keep looking, and we can make a pretty good case for giving up on our Christian walk. But that’s because we look at people around us and not at our faithful God.
Our text today calls to mind the words of Philippians 1:6: ‘Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ’. In fact, we will find the Scriptures overflowing with reminders to us of the faithfulness of God. Take Psalm 4:33 for example: ‘I will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever; with my mouth will I make known Thy faithfulness to all generations’. And consider the encouragement of Psalm 34:19: ‘Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all’. Yes, the Word of God is a constant reminder that amid the failure of people, our God cannot and will not fail us. There is a three-step approach to benefitting from the faithfulness of God: faith, patience, and obedience.
The words of Hebrews 11:6 ring true for the believer as well as the sinner: ‘But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him’. It is faith that saved our souls from hell and it is faith that keeps our souls appreciating our salvation every day. It is faith that accesses the power of God to live for our Lord.
When our faith is tried amid the discouragements and setbacks of life, it is patience that enables us to endure and continue onward and upward. Patience is understanding that God’s timing is not the same as our timing, as 2 Peter 3:8 tells us: ‘But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day’. It is also patience that enables us to grasp that time spent in waiting on God is not wasted time, as Hebrews 6:12 tells us: ‘That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises’.
Finally, obedience is critical to the ability to enjoy the faithfulness of God in our lives. This is our assurance of the Lord’s presence and power in our lives, as John 14:23 tells us: ‘Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him’.
God’s faithfulness toward us is not dependent on our faithfulness to Him, but our appreciation of His faithfulness is. -Jim MacIntosh