The Fruit of the Spirit grows out of the heart of His Spirit within us. It is what He is. His heart if filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Last month we unpacked Gentleness. I must confess, I learned even more about it as I prepared for the Beloved and Becoming channel and podcast. I’d love for you to take a listen or watch. I’m convinced it’s the most misunderstood and undervalued Fruit. But this month’s Fruit is paramount also, because this Fruit not only helps us in relationships with other people, it’s essential for our relationship with Jesus.
I’m convinced, on our own, we could not have the Fruits without Him, but we definitely could not grow in His faithfulness–His enduring, holding on to us, forgiving despite our wondering hearts prone to worship other “gods” of this world.
Today I’m sharing Day 12 of my newest book, From Failure to Faith: A 40-Day Journey to Renew Your Faith and Reclaim Your Calling. This devotional is mostly about His faithfulness, not ours, but that’s the soil where the Fruit grows anyway. We must understand His in order to receive and overflow with such faithfulness.
Covenant Confidence
God is faithful. He is El Emet, the God of faithfulness. Somebody needs to hear this today.
He promises, “I’m faithful.”
Have you heard this promise?
It’s a whisper that’s floated through my spirit the last few years. “Andy, I’m faithful.”
The voice is gentle and kind. It comes when I’m worried or sad. Sometimes I hear it when I’m disappointed or discouraged. And like a balm to aching muscles, this promise always settles my heart and ushers in peace. It doesn’t come with a mandate of obedience or a rebuke. It simply comes with assurance of His character, goodness, and grace.
God’s faithfulness holds a long track record that started with the Israelites. Yahweh was always faithful, but His people were not. Their unfaithfulness and grumbling often caused unpleasant consequences, but despite their unfaithfulness, God opened his arms to them time and time again. Manna every day. Bitter waters sweetened. Honey from a rock. His presence in the wilderness leading, guiding, providing all the way to the Promised Land. He was faithful.
Scripture proclaims His faithfulness. Numbers 23:19 NIV declares, “God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?”
I’m so thankful God is not human. We are such fickle beings. He does not lie, change His mind on a whim, or say He’ll do something and not do it. When He makes a promise, He keeps it.
Have you not kept a promise? I try to refrain from promising anything. Promises can be hard to keep. His promises may take a while to be answered—at least to us. God, however, is not constricted by time. Peter told us this about God when he wrote, “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
Aren’t we thankful He is patient? Look at the promise here. Look at His heart. I cling to this verse for those I love who don’t know Him yet—who have not turned to Him. Did you ever think of His slowness as an aspect of His faithfulness? If this Scripture reveals His character in general, not just for salvation, but how He works through every aspect of our lives, could it be true of our calling? Could His slowness be an aspect of His faithfulness to us?
When I think of waiting on God, I think of Abraham. How many times did God promise him a child, and how many years did it take for baby Isaac to show up? Abraham waited twenty-five years, about twenty-five years later than he planned. Way past child-bearing years, Abraham and Sarah laughed when God told them they’d finally hold the promised baby in their arms, birthed from their old and worn-out bodies. We’ll dig into their story more in Part V.
God’s faithfulness can be traced from the beginning to the end, Genesis to Revelation. But one of my favorite Scriptures about El Emet is found in Lamentations.
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22-23 NIV)
Great is His Faithfulness
Some of us need to incorporate this declaration daily. The context of these verses is paramount. The author (probably Jeremiah) penned this poem sitting among devastation and death. Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Babylonian army. Mothers crying, babies hungry and cold, and the stench of death hanging in the air.
Jeremiah himself suffered greatly. He had been mocked and bullied, and though he was God’s prophet, he too experienced the horror of war. He wrote, “Surely is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all day” (Lam. 3:3 KJV). He suffered physically. Yet he wrote this jewel of hope in the middle of his lament, “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed. . . . great is your faithfulness.”
Come dig a little deeper with me. Let’s do a word study. (I love doing word studies.)
The word I want us to study hides under our translation as love. But this Hebrew word for love holds so much more than our English language infers. The word is chesed. Maybe you’ve heard of it. If you haven’t, this may be the most important day of this book for you because this word fully defines the heart and nature of God. Chesed cannot be defined only as love. If you have a pen or pencil, and you don’t mind writing in your book, circle all the definitions for chesed that are not “love.”
Chesed: A masculine noun indicating kindness, lovingkindness, mercy, goodness, faithfulness, love, acts of kindness. This aspect of God is one of several important aspects of his character: truth; faithfulness; mercy; steadfastness; justice; righteousness; goodness.[1]
Do you see what I mean? The first definition is kindness. Faithfulness, mercy, and acts of kindness follow. Chesed is active. It’s merciful and faithful. This word carries the connotation of covenant. It usually involves an agreement between two parties who have a relationship. I find this fascinating. Read the portion of this annotated definition by Spiros Zodhiates that better explains chesed. (He uses the transliteration hesed. It’s the same word.)
An act of of hesed presupposes the existence of a relationship between the parties involved, but where no formal relationship has been previously recognized, the person exercising hesed has chosen to treat the recipient as if such a relationship did exist. . . . Hesed is central to God’s character (Ps. 59:10; 100:5). It is closely tied to His covenant with His chosen people (Dt. 7:9,12); in fact, the covenant may be thought of as the relationship from which the relationship flows. God’s hesed, however, is not bound by a covenant itself, and though men may prove unfaithful to this relationship, God’s hesed is everlasting (Ps 107:1; 118:1-4,29; Isa 54:8).[2]
I want to highlight the last two sentences. Read them again.
Jeremiah penned, “Because of the LORD’S great chesed—merciful, active, covenant love—we are not consumed.”
God will not break His covenant. Ever. We may endure hard days in our calling. No doubt we’ll face grief and heartache in this life. We may even suffer at times, but one thing is for sure. He will never let us down. It may feel like He has, but that’s when we must cling to His truth. When we experience these feelings and begin to doubt God’s faithfulness, that’s when we really need to run to God’s presence. This happened to Habakkuk.
Habakkuk was disheartened by the oppression of God’s people. God appeared to be indifferent to their suffering. But Habakkuk positioned himself to hear from the Lord rather than questioning, entering a sanctuary of sorts where he postured his heart and waited. He learned God cared for His children and had a perfect time for their salvation. Like Habakkuk, we need to go to the sanctuary of the Lord where we’re humble and quiet. In faith in His goodness, we can ask for a vision of hope concerning our disappointments. “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay” (Habakkuk 2:2-3).
A Vision of His Steadfastness
Do you need a vision from God? Maybe you need to go to His sanctuary like Habakkuk. Where are you humbled and awed? Where can you hear Him? Where can you silence all the voices running circles in your head and simply listen rather than question?
Some of us find our sanctuary on a beach where the rhythm of the sea speaks His constancy. Some of us find Him in the punctuality of the sunrise or the changing of the seasons.
Where do you go to be in the sanctuary of God?
One place I go always brings me hope and fills me with His presence. Church is good. I love worshiping with other people. The mountains are beautiful, and the ocean does roar His power and endurance, but the place that ushers me into His presence and gives me answers when I’m discouraged is the Bible. His Word always reminds me I can be confident of His faithfulness. Some of us study so much for others, we forget to study for ourselves. Maybe that will be where your calling and dreams will be renewed.
(Chapter 12, From Failure to Faith)
Let’s Go to His Word
Scripture after scripture, Genesis to Revelation promise God’s faithfulness. Come read a verse about His Faithfulness every day and let the characteristic of God’s Spirit flow through you.
Grab the Printable on Faithfulness
The Hebrew word for faithful is AMAN. The root of AMAN means to build up or support, to foster as a parent. Our God is a load bearing beam that will never falter or break under the weight of our problems and needs. Lean on him. Let him hold you up.
I can’t think of a better way to close this post than with this verse from 2 Timothy.
The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—
for he cannot deny himself. (2 Timothy 2: 11-13)
A Prayer for More of His Faithfulness
I’m feeling a prayer coming on. Hold my hands. “Father, we live in such a fickle world. It’s hard to be faithful when the world tells us to do what feels good, and perseverance doesn’t matter. But it does. You’ve demonstrated the value and beauty of faithfulness throughout the Bible. Grow that fruit inside of us. Help us be faithful to You and to those in our lives not by our own goodness but Yours. Pour out our selfish, impatient, doubtful inclinations and fill us with Your steadfast, trusting, faithful heart. We love you. We want to be faithful. Amen and amen.”
[1] Warren Baker, Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible ESV (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2013), 1711, Strong’s H2617.
[2] Spiros Zodhiates, Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible NIV (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 1996), s.v. “Hesed,” 1512.