Continuing the “Seek the things above” (Colossians 3:1) series, today, let’s think about this question:
What does it mean to be faithful to God?
Let’s think about it this way … what if your spouse said to you, “Hey, honey, I love you so much. And I want you to know I will always be faithful to you on Tuesdays and Fridays.”
I think it’s a pretty safe bet to say that’s not going to cut it!
No, being faithful isn’t an on-and-off switch. It is a part of life, it is a part of who you are. It’s not something to be labelled a couple times a year, or just on Sundays, and then to be neglected the rest of the time. That is not faithful.
In marriage, we are to be faithful to our spouse by always and continually keeping the vows we made to them. In our relationship with God, we are to be faithful to him by keeping the commitment we made to him the day we were baptised: “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4) Walking in newness of life. What does that mean? Well, the Bible is it’s own best commentary! The text in Romans 6 goes on to explain what this new life is:
“We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.” (Romans 6:6-13)
To summarize in a word: obedience.
And if, on that final day, we want to hear from him, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21), then we need to BE that good and faithful servant now, obeying what he has told us. Not only on Sundays, but everyday. And what a comfort that we can “know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments” (Deuteronomy 7:9) But our faithfulness to God will never be as perfect as God’s faithfulness to us- and even if we suddenly WERE always perfectly faithful from this point on, there is nothing we could do to remove our past sins. Just as it goes on to talk about in the next couple verses of Romans 6 – we are under grace:
“For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!” (Romans 6:14-15)
God calls us to be faithful, and we must – but it is by his grace we are saved.
I hope you’ve found this encouraging. As always, if you disagree, or if you have questions, or just want to talk more, my goal is always to simply convey accurately what the Bible says and I am more than happy to discuss in greater detail – whether in the comments below, or if you’d rather talk more privately, you can always email me. I love to hear from you!
Leave your thoughts below, or drop me a note! :)
The marriage analogy is a good one:) It goes along with the passage about self denial as stated in Luke 9:23. We must put God first, after our own will. Just as in marriage it wouldn’t work to say to our spouse that there is only one other girl or guy in town we love more than them! They wouldn’t take that kindly! They (rightfully) want to be number one of the list! So also when the scriptures say to put God first and deny self, it means just that. It is as Jesus stated in the garden, “Not my will, but thine be done.” Mt. 26:39 However, we all do make mistakes. It is only through the grace of God that we are able to be forgiven. If we say we have no sin, we lie and the truth is not in us. I Jn. 1:8
Good thoughts :)
Bertina
Very true. Our faithfulness to God will never be as perfect as God’s faithfulness to us- and even if we suddenly WERE always perfectly faithful from this point on, there is nothing we could do to remove our past sins. Just as it goes on to talk about in the next couple verses of Romans 6 – we are under grace:
For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
(Romans 6:14-15 ESV)
God calls us to be faithful, but it is by his grace we are saved.
Thanks for bringing up this point, I think I’ll add this in to the post. :)
Hi April!
i have to read your post different times, before to comment it…
i’d like the analogy you do, it make so easy to understand how we have to behave with God!
but sometimes is so hard to keep our faith strong and be obiedient, when we have no idea of what God has planned for us… it will be absolutely the best for us, but it’s so difficult to understand sometimes!
is not easy to keep faith and follow Him, when we don’t know where’s His way will take us, and i think it help to read about saint’s life, and see how many difficult they find by their way, but in the end they always be where God need they… as Mother Teresa says “I’m a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world” (^__^)
Oh, yes, I totally agree – it all starts with know who God is, and what his will is – otherwise that would be like having to faithful to a spouse who we don’t know who they are! :) Fortunately, he has left us a with ways to know who he is… one, that the natural world exists and the level of design that we can see there must have been a Designer who created it, it didn’t happen just by chance. Secondly, he spoke his word through prophets and apostles, and gave them miracles so that people could see that the message was from God. He inspired men to write down His words and he preserved them in what we now have as the Bible. It is by reading the Bible that we can truly get to know Him – no better way than to read what he actually tells us about himself! :)
That, of course, is just a very short way to describe it, and doesn’t offer any proof of why those things are true, but I am hoping to address it more fully on my blog in the future, or of course, I’m always happy to talk together in emails. But in a couple weeks I’m hoping to start a new series on the Bible/God on Wednesdays, and I’m going to put up a few possible topics … one of which is “Does God exist, and how can we know what is the truth about him?” and another topic would be “What is the message of the Bible? Learning the Bible as whole, not as just a collection of ‘unrelated stories'” … and a few other topics, too. I want to do all of them at some point here on the blog, but I thought I’d get people’s feedback on what they were be most interested to hear first, so I’d be curious to know what you would find most helpful. :) I’ll probably put up all the options either next Wednesday or the Wednesday after that. :)
can’t wait to read your futures posts!!! (*^__^*)
i’m really curious to read the one about “how we can know what is the truth about him”, specially after know of the existence of other apocryphal writings (i’d like to talk about those texts with one of my friend that study the Bible): I always think that is strange that history has made some men choose what books are the “real” revelation, and what are not…
another things that i like to thinking about/search/read in the Bible is the role of woman in God’s history: characters like Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca, Rut, and a lot of other woman, without forgot Marie and the other woman who follow Jesus are interesting to study and to see how their behaviour have affect the operates of their man…
and about what you say “It is by reading the Bible that we can truly get to know Him – no better way than to read what he actually tells us about himself!”, some days ago I read the exodus from Egypt, and find different times the sentence “I’m a gelous God” when God talk with Moses for making his people understand that they have to leave all other gods and only follow him… but it sound so strange the first time I read it!
All of those topics are definitely great ones to study! How we know which books are actually inspired of God, and which books are apocryphal … the role of women … and statements like God is a jealous God.
Do you ever use Skype, I’m curious? Some of these take more explanation than others. I’ll go ahead and address here the topic of God being a jealous God, here, but the others would take more space than would go in these comments – but I’m still more than happy to discuss them!
On the statement God is a “jealous God” … it is something that is said a various times in the Bible, such as in Exodus 34:14. And at first it can seem confusing, because generally we think of being jealous as something which is bad, because usually people are jealous of things they shouldn’t be jealous of – and that IS bad. For instance, if you had a really nice car, and I didn’t, and I was jealous of you, that wouldn’t be good … and that is the type of jealous we usually think of: being jealous of something someone else has, that we don’t have a right to be jealous for.
But what about something that I DO have the right to? For instance, if a thief broke into my house and stole my personal belongings and left with them – I would be jealous of those items. They are mine – I don’t want the thief to take them, I want to have them back. And there is nothing wrong with that! I am the one who has the right to them, not the thief.
Or another example – in marriage. My husband made a commitment to me when we got married, he is my husband. I made a commitment to him when I got married, I am his wife. Neither of us has the right to go have an affair with someone else, we belong to each other, as the Bible teaches in many places, such as Romans 7:2-3. If I started having an affair with someone else, would my husband have the right to be jealous? I am his wife, not someone else’s wife. He doesn’t want me to be with someone else, he wants me to be with him. He would be “intolerant of rivalry or unfaithfulness”, which is the definition of jealousy. And he would be right! Because I made a commitment to him as my husband. If I didn’t keep my commitment, he would have every right to be jealous. I am his.
This is parallel to the way God is a jealous God. In Exodus, God took this nation of Israel, who had been slaves in Egypt, and had saved them from that situation. He brought them out of Egypt and was taking them on their way to a new and special land of their own. He provided for them in the wilderness, giving them manna and water. And in the wilderness at Mt. Sinai, God made a covenant with his people (which we can read about in various passages, such as Deuteronomy 5) – he would be their special God, and they would be his special people. He would care for them, and they would obey him. And the people made this covenant with God. And God always kept his promises and convents! So, how would God feel if the people ran off and started worshiping idols? He tells us in Deuteronomy 23:21, “They have made me jealous with what is no god; they have provoked me to anger with their idols.” They were his people and he was their God, and he had every right to be jealous if they were unfaithful. In fact, going after idols is compared to adultery many times in the Bible, such as in Ezekiel 23:37, because both mean you are being unfaithful to someone you made a covenant to. Just as I would be jealous if my husband was in an adulterous relationship, God is jealous if his people worship idols.
So the difference is being jealous for something that IS yours and no one else had a right to (there is nothing wrong with that kind of jealousy) — as opposed to be jealous of something that belongs to someone else and you don’t have a right to (that is the kind of jealousy that is wrong). I hope that helps. :)
whoau April, never think about the word “jealous” with this meaning… it’s really a surprise for me to know a new way to look a word!
i passed the last days think about it, not only about God, but also in the way i am jealous of somebody: it’s very helpful also for try to change myself better!
for other questions, if you don’t treat them in your blog, or if i find some more times to dedicate (this week i have so much work!) i will send you an email…