Two Sides of Faithfulness
Verse for Today: Saturday, January 08, 2011
Psalms 117:2 – For great is His lovingkindness towards us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures for ever.
There are so many reasons to praise the Lord. These reasons include who He really is and what He has done in this world. We praise the Lord also for what He has done for us and what He means to us. His attributes and characteristics are reflected in His deeds around us and in the lives of all His children. One of His most wonderful attributes is His lovingkindness or mercy towards His children. It is because of His mercy that we are not consumed. His mercy encompasses around us to withstand the pressures of life here in this sinful world. His compassion gives us all that we have in this life. We have not earned anything out of our merit or smartness. Sadly the people of the world think that they have secured all that they have because they are intelligent. But it is all what God has created in this world and man is using His God-given intelligence to amass some of these resources through worldly means. In the world, the end justifies the means, but for the Lord the means are as important as the end. For His children, He gives them all that they need so that they can serve Him. All that they make are out of His lovingkindness as His gift to them. Out of His responsibility towards His children, He is moved with compassion to give them what they need. So when they come to His presence, they think only about the Lord and His lovingkindness and not about themselves and their possessions of any kind. They attribute all that they have, whether it is small or large, to His lovingkindness and compassion. He gives it to them to meet their needs as they serve Him and also use it for His purpose here on earth. They are to store up treasures in Heaven and not on earth because what is stored up on earth will be taken away by moth, rust or the stock markets and real estate mafia of this world. In all these, they are to be faithful to the Lord for His faithfulness to them which is a promise above timeliness.
Dear friend, are you faithful to the Lord in all that He has given you out of His faithfulness to you? Do you recognize that all that you enjoy is out of His lovingkindness? Are all the means that you use to make what you earn or amass justifiable according to God’s faithfulness to you? Are you truly grateful to the Lord for all that He has given you according to His promise that if you look after His business, He will look after your affairs? Surely what you do with what you have is an indication of who has given it to you. So when God shows faithfulness to you, you have a greater responsibility to be faithful to Him in how you handle it. The premise of the Word of God is that all that a child of God has comes from the Lord. If this is true in our lives, then it would be easier to see the need for total indebtedness to the Lord for all that you have. Such is the relationship that the Lord is building up with you. If you are truly a child of God, He would not like you to have any thing that He has not given you. Such a situation will only give all glory for all that we have to the Lord and attribute it all to His lovingkindness and faithfulness. This is what the Lord desires for His children. But we are free to go to sources other than the Lord to get more and more of what the world has. But there is no scope for thanking God for such resources because the means are not ordained of the Lord and that the source is not your Heavenly Father. Today let us commit ourselves for total dependence on our Father in Heaven and have the reassurance that all that we have are from Him according to His means which have come our way according to His faithfulness towards us as we are also faithful to Him. When we take this up as a spiritual challenge and spiritual reality, our dependence on Him will increase. He will surely honor such simple faith and lead us forward.
Matthew 6:33 – But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Thought for Today
The God of Glory who deserves all praise for all that happens in the life of His children has made all provisions for all the needs of His children to be met according to His riches in glory.
