What comes to mind when you think of something that is faithful?
A couple that has been together for many years without cheating on each other? That cute little puppy curled up on your bed? A close friend that you have known for many years? Christ and his love?
But when you think of faithfulness does your own walk with Christ come to mind?
The Greek word that Paul used here is pistis = fidelity, faithfulness, the character of one who can be relied upon, belief with the predominate idea of trust (or confidence). In this passage it also brings the idea of continuing in the faith, or being faithful.
In the modern church there are many different ideas on what “faithful” looks like. Our pastors teach on being faithful in our devotion time or our tithes but is that really all there is to being a faithful christian?
I was taught by a very wise man that to be faithful to Christ is more than spitting out a prayer each morning or volunteering to help with the next church outreach. To be faithful to Christ is to be faithful to our faith and to the convictions that our Abba laid before with a joyful heart.
However we as Christians act as though it is a inconvenience to be faithful to our savior when he literally gave everything for us and is always faithful and true.
In the here and now it seems like we as Christians give up so much to be faithful to the teachings of the bible. We spend valuable time praying, reading our bibles, and going to church. We have to give up some of the main stream media and all of those fun little pet habits. We have to change the people we call friends. We have to give up what we consider fun and comfortable to be faithful to our Abba.
Many Christians (myself included) have at one time or another thrown up their hands in discouragement at how hard it is to be faithful and how many times it seems that we are faithful to our own flesh and the sin that used to hold us captive.
However Christ doesn’t want us to live in defeat over our faithfulness to him, or lack thereof. Nor does he want us to just blissfully do our own thing and only show faithfulness to him on Sundays and Wednesday bible studies.
I believe he wants us to seek after him with our whole hearts giving him all our devotion and love. When you love someone like that you can’t help but be faithful to what they ask you to do and what you say you will do for them.
Christ never asked us to be faithful out of duty and he never will. He will never guilt you when you are not faithful. Instead of us throwing up our hands in defeat or going blissfully along our merry ways we should ask the Lord to supply the strength to be faithful to him when we are so weak in our flesh. He will not think any less of us when we ask him for that.
With that love, devotion and strength I believe that others around us would start thinking of our relationship with Christ when they think of faithful.
When we are faithful in our words, attitudes, actions and any other parts of our lives we give off a witness that is so powerful. When we are faithful we are different. And with that difference we are salt to a world that doesn’t know the meaning of the word “faithful”.
Maybe by being faithful to Christ and his ways we will change the world one person at a time.
Cool blog. This one was very well written.
Being faithful has the word integrity attached to it too…I think.