Lamentations 3:22-23 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Faithfulness has to be demonstrated in order to be believed. I believe because I see it.
2 Corinthians 1:20 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.
God has demonstrated that His Word is true. He has kept His promises. We utter Amen as a demonstration of our agreement with God in all His promises, even if we have not yet seen them come to pass in our lives yet.
Once again we find ourselves depending on His Word being inspired by God as a true record of His communicating with His creation. What has changed about reading and believing?
Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
God gave us His Word. He gave us His Son. In order to discover the faith that unlocks the mystery that is Christ, we must access the hearing of the Word that is Christ. We accomplish this by accepting the gift that was given, the Son.
We have been over this before, it is nothing new. So why is faithfulness the subject of this article?
Romans 8:29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
He wants us to be faithful as His Son is faithful. So what is keeping us from being faithful as His Son is faithful? Free will. Ouch!
Romans 7:15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
This is Paul’s confession. Sound familiar? Let me remind everyone that this did not stop God from using Paul to be the architect of His church. Paul’s contributions to the New Testament overshadow the number of passages by Luke, Peter and John. That was no accident.
Luke was a doctor, Peter and John were fishermen. Paul was a zealous student of the law.