FAITHFULNESS

What does faithfulness mean?
Faithfulness is when we obey the covenant we have made with God and using this covenant whenever necessary with God.

So what is a covenant?
A covenant is an agreement when you give your life to Christ. It’s not up to me to control my life now, it’s up to Jesus to control it. When some people make covenants with God, they give just their soul or their heart or their body – maybe they only give 50/50 – they keep something back for themselves. This leads to different types of Christians. For some God controls 100% of their life; others 50%; others 20%. So that’s why some Christians are stronger in their faith and others are weaker and struggle.

Determination
The second step in being faithful is determination. You must determine that from now on, whatever may happen, you will never change the decision you made in your mind when deciding to accept Jesus. This step is the hardest for a Christian. When we lack determination we have to ask God for help. Help to not waiver in your faith, help not to look back, help to continue to remain steadfast to Him.

Once we have determined we want to be faithful to God, we must make the step of starting to live a new life which is different from your will – it’s now God’s will controlling your life. Often when Christians think about faithfulness, they think about it in the context of sex etc… between husband and wife. But for God to see if we are faithful, He looks at our intentions, which are in our heart.

The intentions that are right before God, these are what we must put into practice. When you start to practice all of this, that’s the time when God will open His mouth and talk to others about you. God will testify to people how faithful you are to Him. This is also the time that God will come close to you and start to test you and to see how you will put His Word into practice and how much we ask Him for help. If the situation is hard, don’t go far away, stay close to God.

Through the tests God gives us, He sees how faithful we really are. He can be proud of us as He was with Job. To the point where He said to Satan, “Look, do you see my servant Job, he is very faithful.” And God allowed Satan to do all those horrible things to Job and his family. The test of true faithfulness has begun.

Also, to overcome the tests we need to have the fruit of self-control. If you don’t have the fruit of self-control, you will never be faithful. When we have this fruit, God will continue to be close to us. When you have self-control, you have assurance of salvation and that you will do this and that for God because you know you can control yourself. If Job didn’t have self-control, he really could have gone far away from God. But he controlled his body, his thoughts, his actions and his speech under very difficult circumstances and God came even closer to him. He blessed Job even more than He had before because through self-control, Job was faithful to God.

People close to us, like Job’s wife and friends, can sometimes destroy our faithfulness. They might ask us to do something outside of God’s will. That’s why it’s so important to know the Word of God and see if it matches.

After self-control, comes the fruit of kindness; someone might be talking to you really angrily, but you still must talk kind to them because you can control yourself. As Christians this is really important. Kindness must be a fruit that is evident in your life, for God and others to see and taste.

Faithfulness with God means to walk in justice. You must know what is the truth. And two ways to know the truth is to check with the Bible or to go and see that person to find out the truth. The Bible says that if you have a problem with a brother, to go to them and sort it out. So it’s very important to practice the Word of God. And as I said before, if you can’t practice the Word of God, you will never be faithful.

Another way of being faithful to God is to take the message from messengers of God. Don’t think the message is just for somebody else – take it for your life, for yourself, for your salvation. And try to put the message into practice.

An example of a faithful person in the Bible: Elijah – 1 Kings 18. On Mount Carmel in front of all those prophets, he didn’t panic or lose his courage – he knew God was with him. He controlled his body, his thoughts, his actions and he was proud of his God. He knew God would intervene and once again his faithfulness to God came down to self-control. Wherever there is water, fire can never be! But with God, all things are possible. And you know how the story ended.

This same Elijah became unfaithful and he ran away after someone said, “I’ll kill you.” He also complained to God. He lost his self-control and started to doubt. This means that whenever we lose self-control or we doubt, we can easily become unfaithful to our God.

In hard situations, the first thing we must do is ask God first for strength because now is the time to practice the Word of God. Ask God for self-control to stay faithful to Him.
Galatians 6:1-4

It’s hard to be faithful to God if you don’t trust those in the body of Christ. This is not for the glory of others but for the glory of God. We trust the preachings that people give us and check to see if it’s what the Word of God says and this helps us to be faithful to God.

As God’s wife, we can make people think we are faithful, but God can see directly into our hearts and He knows when we are not faithful. So tonight, I ask you to analyse your life and the covenant you made with God. What did you give to God on that day? Is it 100% of your life, 70%, 20% or 5%? Do you think if God came close to you tonight, He would see the fruit of faithfulness, self-control and kindness?

Are you a branch on His vine that is laden with 9 delicious fruit worthy to stay there or are you a branch that is lacking some of these fruit but desire more, or are you a branch that is empty and not producing fruit and one day will be pruned off? On the day that you made a covenant with God, how much of your life did you give? 100%, 70%, 20%, 5%?

Like Job, are you a faithful servant whom God can show off to His enemies? If faithlessness is a problem in your life, can you see a need for more self-control?

Self-control isn’t always about stopping yourself from doing something; it can also mean to push yourself to do something. For example, how many times have I promised I would ring people in our group but I haven’t done it. This is also a lack of self-control because I don’t control my laziness or my carelessness in order to do what I should.

Also be encouraged if you are crossing a hard situation – God is close to you and testing you to see how great your faithfulness really is. And know that the blessings He has in store for those who remain faithful to Him are eternal. Also remember the sufferings and hardships you endure here on earth, are according to Romans 8:18 helping to produce an indescribable glory to be revealed to us. So obey the Word of God, be determined, self-controlled and kind and know that you are practising faithfulness in your life. Amen.

Psalm 145:18
James 4:8
James 4:14-15
James 4 :11
1 Kings 18