Living Understanding Pt 22: He is faithful

1Thessalonians 5:23-24        23 And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you through and through [separate you from profane things, make you pure and wholly consecrated to God]; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved sound and complete [and found] blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah).  24 Faithful is He Who is calling you [to Himself] and utterly trustworthy, and He will also do it [fulfill His call by hallowing and keeping you]. (AMP)

Lamentations 3:22-23           22Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. 23They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (NIV)

Romans 8:28                          28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (NIV)

Psalm 86:15                           15But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. (NIV)

Recently circumstances have arisen that have caused me to chafe under restrictions that I have found unnecessarily limiting.  In the old days, before I accepted Christ as my Savior, I would have ignored the restrictions, gone my own way, and generally thumbed my nose at those bringing the restrictions.  While I still feel a remnant of those feelings, I today inherently trust the motives and intentions of the ones bringing the current limitations.  More than that, I trust my God who is using this situation to bring me into fuller intimacy with him.  Still, I find myself questioning why I am having this struggle.

Faithful is He

But I remind myself that God is faithful, and that no matter the circumstances I find myself in, I can trust that the situation will turn out for the better.  This is a hard thing for us to take in because unfaithfulness is so prevalent around us.  Our friends consistently say they will be there for us, but the usual reality is that they are there until their desires conflict with ours.  But certainly God is more dependable than that.  He is true to his word, and all the things he promises come to pass.  We get impatient though, because we want what we want when we want it, even if that is detrimental to us.

Faithful means to have steadfast affection and allegiance.  We humans are filled with sin yet God still pursues us.  He can’t associate with sin or evil, yet he still showers us with love, and every day is new.  He hold no grudges, no offenses and when we wake in the morning our slate is clean and we begin again with him.  All he asks is that we repent of our sins, love him with all of our heart soul, mind, and strength and love those around us.  It seems like an easy bargain to me.

Utterly trustworthy

We can trust God!  For one thing he sees the fuller picture.  He know that last domino which our action will cause to fall.  Maybe that thing we want doesn’t happen because God knows that ultimately it will turn out to be the wrong choice.  And God is absolutely sovereign.  So because he knows the fuller picture things happen the way he determines and only the way he determines.

Hallowing and keeping you

We hear a lot about God calling us and usually people mean he has given them some lofty task to do; starting a church, feeding the poor; providing housing for the homeless; that sort of thing.  But truthfully God’s calling is about coming to faith in his Son, entry into the Kingdom, and helping others to the same.  In one sense that is easy to do—all we have to do is give our life over to Jesus.  But in another it is very difficult because we still have those sinful habits and fleshly knee-jerk reactions which so get in the way.

But remember God doesn’t give up.  When he calls a person to faith, he does no half-way job.  When the verse says he hallows you, it means he makes you holy.  “What,” you say, “me?”  True, we can’t achieve holiness in our human strength, but we can trust God and allow him to guide and shape our lives.  When we follow the various scriptures about living kindly, loving our neighbors, and seeking forgiveness, we are in fact endeavoring to live holy lives.  Just because we repeatedly fail doesn’t change the fact that we are trying.  God certainly understands that.

What about me?

I imagine every person has that moment when they wonder if all these promises God has made are true and if they really will happen.  It does seem too good to be true.  You are probably no different.  James says we are to be joyful when we face struggles because it gives us an opportunity to become more like God.  In actuality we have two choices when we face problems:  We can trust God and believe he is who he says he is, or we can allow Satan to lie to us, to dump rejection and condemnation on our head through the struggle.  Also, the problem is made worse because we have difficulty seeing beyond the boundary of the struggle.  It’s hard to see the other side.  I have a friend who says every failure starts with a decision.  If we decide to follow Satan’s way the struggle just gets worse and worse.

But it doesn’t hurt to assume God’s promises are true.  Certainly he has vindicated himself time after time.  The most recent prophecy made true comes from Ezekiel…

7“Before she goes into labor, she gives birth; before the pains come upon her, she delivers a son. 8Who has ever heard of such things? Who has ever seen things like this? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children. 9Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery?” says the LORD. (Ezekiel 66: 7-9)

And in fact on May 14, 1948, Israel became a nation…in one day!

My friend, you can trust what God says.  He will not leave you or forsake you—trust him—he will be at your side for all your days.