THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD

Jose Mathews, Mangalore

                Ps 119:90 - Your faithfulness endures to all generations;

Ever since God created man, man has been witnessing the faithfulness of God in every area of his life.  Millions of saints over the centuries have witnessed the faithfulness of God.  A child of God today can only say that he is sustained by the faithfulness of God and not on his own merits.  God cannot prove Himself to be unfaithful at any time for faithfulness is the part of His personality. The Bible reveals different aspects of God's faithfulness.

1. Faithfulness is God's character:

De 7:9-  "Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments;

God is a person who has specific characters which are revealed to man through His attributes. Faithfulness is a character of God which man has been witnessing from the beginning of his creation. God never changes His character from time to time. His character revealed to us in Christ shows that he is unchanging and the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb.13:8).  It is man who often changes his stand and commitment. Many a time man goes far away from the plan of God. But because God never ceases to be faithful, man can always turn back from his wrong ways and return to God. In His faithfulness, God always accepts him and restores him. It is God's desire that man always remain faithful to God in the commitment and decisions he makes before God. No man will ever be put to shame or regret for trusting his life in the hands of a faithful God.

2. God's faithfulness is everlasting:

Jer 32:40- 'And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me.

God Himself is an everlasting God. His attributes are to eternity. Hence His faithfulness also is everlasting. God often made everlasting covenant with Israel and proved His everlasting faithfulness. His faithfulness did not cease with one generation, but generations after generations witnessed the faithfulness of God, often because of the covenant God made with their fathers. He is a faithful God who keeps His covenant and mercy for a thousand generations (De 7:9).  The faithfulness of God towards the early fathers who stood for their faith and endured hardships and sufferings to defend their faith is manifested in the lives of their descendants in this present generation. Most of the blessings being enjoyed by the second and third generation today are the result of God's faithfulness to their fathers. While enjoying the abundance of God's blessings today, one should never forget the faithfulness of God. The everlasting faithfulness of God is to be remembered and acknowledged with a grateful heart. God's everlasting faithfulness will continue to the descendants of such. God will prove Himself to be faithful to their children.

3. God's faithfulness does not depend on man's merits:

Eze 39:25-26: "Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: 'Now I will bring back the captives of Jacob, and have mercy on the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for My holy name-  'after they have borne their shame, and all their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, when they dwelt safely in their own land and no one made them afraid.

History shows that God's faithfulness never depended on the merits of man. There are several occasions when the children of God have become unfaithful to God in many areas of their lives. Yet God remained faithful to His promises and continued to provide and protect them. He has not dealt with them according to their sins, nor punished them according to their iniquities (Ps 103:10). God loved man while they were yet sinners and enemies to God.  If God were to deal with His people according their merits, none would ever come anywhere near God. Anyone who comes to Him with a repentant heart, He forgives them, restores them and continues to prove His faithfulness in their lives. He responds to the feelings and needs of the downtrodden and the broken hearted.  He longs for His children to turn back to Him with a repentant heart so that He can continue to show His faithfulness unto them. However God's longsuffering should not be taken as an approval for any man to continue in his wrong ways. God gives opportunities to man, but never allows anyone to test His patience.

4. God's faithfulness is beyond man's logics:

Job 26:14 - Indeed these are the mere edges of His ways, And how small a whisper we hear of Him! But the thunder of His power who can understand?"

God is the creator, the omniscient and the eternal. His ways are beyond man's understanding. God has been revealing Himself to man progressively from the beginning. Yet He cannot be measured by man's logics. Even so His faithfulness to mankind is beyond man's logics. Often the most undeserving in human eyes will receive and enjoy the faithfulness of God and the most deserving according to human logics will be rejected by God. It is God's promise that anyone who comes to Him will not be forsaken or rejected. He always remains faithful to His promise, even if it does not satisfy the human logics. On one occasion the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. According to their logics, the Lord should have asked them to stone her. But when the Lord told them "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first" (Joh 8:7), none of them dared to throw a stone at her.  God looks at the heart of every man and extends His faithfulness according to His promise. A child of God should only accept the sovereignty of God and never stand to criticize or condemn the recipients of the faithfulness of God in such cases. Neither should one grumble or complain when the righteous go through trials and persecutions in life. Even though it appears that the Lord is silent, one must be sure that the faithfulness of God will be manifested in His own time and in His own ways. It may still appear to be beyond human logics, yet the Lord remains faithful in all His attributes.  

5. God's faithfulness cannot be compromised:

Eze 33:20 -  "Yet you say, 'The way of the Lord is not fair.' O house of Israel, I will judge every one of you according to his own ways."

God will never contradict His own word and promises. God's word speaks of the righteousness and justice of God. In the process of extending His faithfulness to man, God will never compromise on His own justice and righteousness. While enjoying the pleasant ways of God's faithfulness, it is not fair on man's part to say that God is unfair when he exercises His justice.  The Bible says that God is love, but in order to manifest that love, God did not compromise on His justice, but allowed His son Jesus Christ to suffer and die on behalf of man. When God's people continue to walk in evil ways and displease God, He uses disciplinary methods to correct them and bring them back to repentance. God's methods of discipline may be painful and may not be pleasant at the moment, but it is for the good of His people (Heb 12:11). It is the part of His faithfulness, for He disciplines only the children whom He loves.  Every pleasure man enjoys outside the holiness of God attracts a consequence. Man cannot continue to enjoy the pleasure of God's faithfulness and the pleasure of sin at the same time. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1John 1:9).

The faithfulness of God is enjoyed by His children not only in this life. The Bible clearly speaks that for every service we do for Him in this world assures us a reward in heaven. We have crowns in store in heaven for all that we endure for Him here on earth. God is so faithful that none of our faithful service to Him will miss His account nor can any power deprive us of what God has in store for us. Our God is a faithful God. His faithfulness is marvellous in our eyes.

The Result of Salvation in Christ

Since the fall of man, caused by the sin of Adam in the Garden of Eden, there was no remedy for sin until the death and resurrection of Our Savior Jesus Christ. After His death and resurrection, some people have sought and found salvation. Those who have found salvation know that the blood of Jesus Christ frees the saved person from the death grips of sin. However, believer or non-believer; saved or not, do they really know the results of salvation? Well, there are four freedoms from four different things. Apostle Paul writes of these freedoms in his letter to the Romans.

The first freedom we have is from the wrath of God. We are free from wrath, as it is written in Romans 5:1-21. Verse 9 states, 'Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!' Before we are saved, we are sinners before a Holy God and He can punish us with all fury and anger. However, one result of salvation is that we are justified through the blood of Jesus Christ and we are set apart from the wrath of God.

The second freedom we see in Romans is the freedom from sin. The freedom from sin is found in Romans 6:1-23. The question asked in Verse 1 is: 'Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?' We see the answer to this question in Verse 2. We should not sin any longer, so that grace may increase. This is directed towards all those that are baptized, that because we have been baptized in Christ we are also baptized into his death. Meaning, we are dead to sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus as we see in Romans 6:11.

The third freedom is the freedom from the law that eventually brings forth sin. Paul writes about this freedom from the law in Romans 7:1-25. The first 7 verses give us a small illustration on how we are separated from the law. The illustration Paul uses is of marriage. He writes about how if a husband dies a wife is separated from the law of marriage, but if she remarries while her husband is alive she commits adultery. This illustration gives us a clear picture on how our lives should be now. We have died to sin setting ourselves apart from the law. Now we can serve through the Spirit. Knowing that we are apart from the law, we have to understand one thing that is asked in Roman 7:7 'Is the law sin?' The law, as Paul writes, is not sinful, but it is Holy, righteous, and good (Romans7: 12).

The last freedom or result of salvation is the freedom from Death which we see in Romans 8:1-39. We see in the first verse that we are no more in the condemnation of Christ because we are in Christ. God gave up his only begotten Son to bear the pain and the death which we did not have to bear or go through. This condemnation was taken away from us as we live through the spirit. Not only does Romans 8 talk about freedom from death, but it also talks about life through the spirit. It says that when our life is through the spirit we have no condemnation, and we also share in God's suffering as we share in his glory. We suffer at times but God has promised us that it is nothing we cannot bear. In the end, 'in all things God works for the good of those who love him.'

These freedoms of salvation have one thing in common, which is that salvation sets us apart from sin like we find in the marriage illustration. Sin had control over us before Christ's death and resurrection, but as we have died with Christ we have died to sin therefore giving us the option not to sin. We may try not to sin and live according to the Word. However, 'sin is crouching at the door' and our adversary, the devil, is constantly looking for us to fall through sin. As a saved follower of Christ, we have to choose the correct path to God and realize the four results of being saved, so that we may overcome sin.

Rewards-Crowns

 K.C. Mathai, Dallas

In Scripture, it is very clear that reward is offered to the work we do for the Lord. In 1 Corinthians 3:8, we see that if his work survives the testing, he will receive the reward. In Galatians 6:7, we read if one sows in Spirit to please the Lord, he will reap Eternal Life. In Ephesians 6:8, we could see that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever he does that is good. Colossians 3:23, if the work is with all his heart and working for the Lord, we will receive an inheritance from Him. Finally in Revelation 22:12, the promise of reward is associated with His coming and it will be given to everyone according to the work he has done here on Earth.

In the previous article, we could see that there is reward and that the Judgment Seat of Christ is not for judgment. In this article, we are going to look at the time, place and the various rewards to various people and its relevance to our work today.

The Time of the Bema Seat of Christ

It will take place when the church is with Christ- after the rapture. In Luke 14:14, reward is associated with the resurrection. From 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, the resurrection is an important part of His translation; His reward must also be a part of that program. Also we see that when the Lord returns to Earth, the bride is presented as dearly rewarded and she is going to reign with Christ. According to 1 Corinthians 4:5 and Revelations 22:12, the reward is associated with 'that day,' that is His day in which the Lord comes for His own. From these verses, it is evident that the rewarding of the church should take place between the rapture and the revelation of Christ to this Earth.

The Place of the Bema Seat

The examination takes place in His sphere of the heavenlies. We are caught up at the rapture to be with Him in the 'air.' It must be the scene of the Bēma Seat.

In the New Testament, there are five areas in which specific mentions made of reward:

1.      An Incorruptible Crown for those who get mastery over the old man (The Adamic nature) -1Corinthians 9:25

2.      A Crown of Rejoicing for the soul winners -1Thessalonians 2:19

3.      A Crown of Life for those who endure trials - James 1:12

4.      A Crown of righteousness for those loving His appearing

5.      A Crown of Glory for being willing to feed the flock of God - 1 Peter 5:4