Fruit of the Spirit Faithfulness
We Christians are a faith-filled people, faithful to the God we worship, faithful in worshipping regularly, faithful in prayer, but are we faithful to what Jesus taught and how he lived? Or are we still too attached to the world’s ways and too dismissive of Jesus’s ways? We should ask ourselves these questions:
- Do I follow Jesus and the way He was in the world? Do I teach and heal? Am I interested in what other people’s desires are? Am I loving other people no matter who they are?
- Do I speak truth to power like Jesus did, but not denigrate the rich or the poor?
- Is the focus of my life about getting as much money and material stuff as I can, but not about love and forgiveness and generosity?
- Do I know the purpose that God designed for me or am I more about serving myself than about fulfilling my purpose in life?
Being faithful to God means that we are following Jesus, allowing the Holy Spirit to lead our lives, but the evidence of our faithfulness shows up in our faithfulness to our purpose, our faithfulness to the people we meet and help, our faithfulness to what the Holy Spirit asks of us each day. As with all the fruit of the Spirit, faithfulness in all its aspects grows in us as we devote more and more of our lives to God, as we live out our purpose and help God spread the news of His kingdom here on earth. It grows as our ability to live in peace, our experience of joy, our ability to love, to be patient, to be good, kind and gentle, and our self-control grow in us, too. All the fruit of the spirit are love’s ways of being in this world, with God, with all other people and with ourselves.
We can be faithful attenders of church every Sunday and still not be faithful to God. Faithfulness is an ever-deepening commitment to spread God’s love with our lives no matter our profession or work, no matter what neighborhood we live in or how much money we have. It takes a deep sense of connectedness to God through prayer to deepen our relationship with God. It takes knowing the Bible and hearing what any verse or parable or passage is saying to us today, not only what our pastor says it means. It takes loving other people, anyone whom God puts in our path/on our agenda. It takes service to others. It takes love and forgiveness for ourselves and all that we have done and it takes love and forgiveness for everyone in our lives, our family and for anyone we are called to serve. It takes our love of justice and mercy for everyone.
Remember that we are human beings, not perfect people. We will screw up; we will fail to be loving and faithful. But it is what we do with our failures that determines our faithfulness. Do I repent the minute I realize what I’ve done? Do I apologize to the person I harmed? Do I kneel before God and confess my sin? Do I determine to return to my love for God and His people, His creation? These responses really are telling about our faithfulness, our commitments to God. So much of our prayers must be about adhering to faithfulness to God. We must ask for His help in showing where we lack faithfulness. And when He answers us, we must ask His help in healing this tendency in us. Only in a deep connectedness to God does this faithfulness begin to arise.
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Questions to ponder over the week(as noted in this post): Do I follow Jesus and the way He was in the world? Do I teach and heal? Am I interested in what other people’s desires are? Am I loving other people no matter who they are? Do I speak truth to power like Jesus did, but not denigrate the rich or the poor? Is the focus of my life about getting as much money and material stuff as I can, but not about love and forgiveness and generosity? Do I know the purpose that God designed for me or am I more about serving myself than about fulfilling my purpose in life? Do I repent the minute I realize what I’ve done? Do I apologize to the person I harmed? Do I kneel before God and confess my sin? Do I determine to return to my love for God and His people, His creation?
Blessing for the week: May we be the faithful people of God who, in partnership with Him, do all that He asks of us. May our faithfulness to God extend to every area of our lives—work, family, leisure, friends, and more.
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