Righteous faithfulness!
Verse for Today: Saturday, November 02, 2013
Isaiah 11:5 – Righteousness will be His belt and faithfulness the sash round His waist.
In all His dealings God exhibits His character of righteousness and faithfulness. He is righteous in all His dealings. He does what is right according to His written Word. He will reward all who do things right and punish all who do evil. God is faithful in all that He does because it is done according to His plans and promises. He will fulfill His promises to the uttermost. He doesn’t change His character and will not deviate from being faithful. Even as He is righteous, God is also the God of compassion and grace. He will forgive us when we repent. He will not despise us nor will He find fault with us, but will forgive us when we approach Him with a repentant heart. We can always count on His faithfulness to all that He has promised. It is because of God’s faithfulness that we are not consumed because if He is righteous, He must punish us. But when we repent, His faithfulness to forgive us comes to take charge of His character. When we go astray, His righteousness need not go after us to take us back, but must allow us to go to destruction. But His faithfulness comes after the lost and disobedient sinner to admonish us to get back to Him. He is not simply faithful without being righteous. If we do not repent, we will earn His wrath because we deserve it and His righteousness must punish us. God’s righteousness and faithfulness work as two sides of a coin and are administered in a balanced manner for our good. God’s righteousness demands our faithfulness to His commandments and God’s faithfulness demands our dependence on His righteousness to live fearfully and reverently. It is when these two blend together will we be able to live faithfully to His commandments and fearfully to His righteousness. God’s character thus challenges us today to live for Him by trusting Him to be faithful to us as we cling on to His promises.
Dear friend, are you today dependent on God’s faithfulness to fulfill His promises to you? At the same time are you exasperated at the delays and the inordinate waiting time for God to fulfill His promises? But these delays are only from the human side of the story. For God, there is no delay in showing faithfulness to you because He operates according to His perfect schedules. The righteous God does things which are always absolutely right because He cannot be other than being right and faithful. To cope with God’s ways of doing things, you and I need His grace which is part of His faithfulness. He has guaranteed to give us grace when we need it in the right measure. God’s grace is immeasurable and unfathomable. It is as vast as an ocean filled with His faithfulness and righteousness. We can go to Him and imbibe to get ourselves filled up. God expects us to live with His grace and express it through our behavior with others as well. Down through the centuries, God’s children clung on to God’s graceful faithfulness and righteousness to weather away the challenges of life. They were strengthened by God’s grace, fortified by His faithfulness and forewarned by His righteousness. They lived by faith to enjoy His faithfulness and fearfully to enjoy His righteousness. God became Man so that it would be possible for us to draw the benefits of His character from Him through His Spirit to meet all our challenges in life. Today we are invited to live by enjoying His grace, faithfulness and righteousness to meet all our challenges, concerns and cares.
Lamentations 3:23 – (God’s mercy and compassion) are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.
Thought for Today
A new day renews God’s mercy, compassion and faithfulness to His children to meet all challenges in life.
Prayer for Today
Dear Lord Jesus: Help me today to trust Your faithfulness, mercy and compassion to be my buffer against all the challenges and concerns in life. Amen!
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