Faith and faithfulness.

Do you trust God completely? So much so that you live according to your faith, to the point that the Lord is able to trust you too? When Jesus Christ returns, it will be the most wonderful of mercies to hear him say to us appreciatively:  "Well done, good and faithful servant!"

God is always faithful, and we should learn to take him at his Word. But do we trust in him unconditionally? Is the fact that we sometimes cannot be trusted not the result of not understanding the absolute integrity of God’s promises and his character to never be anything but faithful to his Word and to his people?

Proverbs 20: 6 says: "Many a man claims to have unfailing love, but a faithful man who can find?"  It is increasingly difficult to find someone whose love and loyalty can be counted on. Too many people in our modern society are unpredictable and unreliable, to the extent that we rather expect people to break their word than keep it – and therefore not feel that we are doing something wrong when we too cannot be counted upon when we promised to make a difference.

Paul's list of shameful attitudes and habits "in the last days" (2 Timothy 3:1) is disturbing, when we think that he is talking about God’s people in his Church: "For people will be lovers of themselves...blasphemers... unloving...slanderers...traitors..." (verses 2-4). The consequences of these ungodly behaviours to society, and to the ability of the Church to do God’s work, are catastrophic.

God hates any form of unfaithfulness.

All significant relationships are built on the foundation of faith and faithfulness, in other words on trust born out of trustworthiness. Also our relationships with the Lord and with his people are incomprehensible without faith and faithfulness. Proverbs says that a good friend is a faithful friend, one who loves at all times" (Proverbs 17:17)

According to 2 Timothy 1: 13 – 14, to truly "hold fast" spiritually, we must have God's Spirit dwelling within us. And the "fruit" that God's Spirit gives us is composed of wonderful qualities. The apostle Paul listed some of the most important ones:  "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23)