Devotions: Aspiration

Faithfulness

If there is a coinage in the Kingdom of God, it isn’t what people normally treasure: talent, physical beauty, intelligence, creativity, skill, or personality. The quality that holds the greatest value in the Kingdom of God is faithfulness.

Today a new week begins. Regardless of the demands our work places on us, whether they are physical, mental, or emotional, work of any kind requires faithfulness. Showing up and showing up on time is important. Faithfulness on the job has an air of predictability about it that enables us to keep a job when we are blessed to have one.

One of the most vital characteristics of God is His faithfulness.

• He does not forget what he has promised.
• He never loses track of His people.
• He never sleeps nor does He slumber, so God is faithful through the longest night.
• He is faithful and just to forgive us ours sins when we confess them freely to Him and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
• He hears us when we pray, when we praise Him, and when we worship Him and,
• He is always faithful to respond to our praise and gratitude with the gift of His presence and the comfort of His sovereignty.

God is a covenant keeping God who cannot lie and never has to reconsider a promise. Keeping Covenant is His nature. God has all power, so nothing can ever hinder Him from being faithful to His word. In the book of Revelation, Jesus is given a name, “Faithful and True.”

We are made in His image, so truth is of immense importance to us. We want to know the truth of things. We have an inherent expectation that life should make sense and that God should be true. When this does not seem to be the case, doubts about God and His faithfulness crowd into our minds. Sometimes life only makes sense to God and we can’t make heads or tails of it. Sometimes it seems the truth isn’t really true and we wonder if we have believed cleverly devised fables.

These enigmas and mysteries of life make our faithfulness important, too.

• Let us be faithful in prayer, so that we can place the things we don’t understand before God’s throne.
• Let us be faithful in reading the Word so the truth of God can continue to set us free.
• Let us be faithful to God on the job so others can count on us and see in our faithfulness a reflection of the faithfulness of God.

Each faithful attitude and action adds a valuable coin of the realm to our heavenly account. In the words of Jesus, we can be “rich toward God.”

Scriptures:
Psalm 89
Your love, O Lord, forever will I sing; from age to age my mouth will proclaim your faithfulness. For I am persuaded that your love is established for ever; you have set your faithfulness firmly in the heavens. “I have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn an oath to David my servant: ‘I will establish your line for ever, and preserve your throne for all generations.'” The heavens bear witness to your wonders, O Lord, and to your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones; For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? who is like the Lord among the gods? God is much to be feared in the council of the holy ones, great and terrible to all those round about him. Who is like you, Lord God of hosts? O mighty Lord, your faithfulness is all around you. You rule the raging of the sea and still the surging of its waves. You have crushed Rahab of the deep with a deadly wound; you have scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. Yours are the heavens; the earth also is yours; you laid the foundations of the world and all that is in it. You have made the north and the south; Tabor and Hermon rejoice in your Name. You have a mighty arm; strong is your hand and high is your right hand. Righteousness and justice are the foundations of your throne; love and truth go before your face. Happy are the people who know the festal shout! they walk, O Lord, in the light of your presence. They rejoice daily in your Name; they are jubilant in your righteousness. For you are the glory of their strength, and by your favor our might is exalted. Truly, the Lord is our ruler; The Holy One of Israel is our King.

Revelation 19:11
I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True.

Matthew 25:19-21
“After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.’ “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

Romans 12:12-13
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

Hebrews 10:22-24
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

Song of God’s Faithfulness
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
Text: Thomas O. Chisholm Music: William Runyan

1.Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee,
Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not,
As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.

Refrain:
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!

2.Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above;
Join with all nature in manifold witness,
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love.

Refrain

3.Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thine own great presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today, and bright hope for tomorrow
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside.

Refrain

Semper Reformanda!
Stephen Phifer

© 2016 Stephen R. Phifer All Rights Reserved