But God Is Faithful...

"No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised"  (Rom. 4:20-21, ESV).

"... [For] I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me"  (2 Tim. 1:12, ESV). 

God is faithful, even when we aren't.  "... [Great] is [God's] faithfulness" (Lam. 3:23, NIV). We are invited to "feed on His faithfulness" (cf. Psalm 37:3).   The same verse in the ESV says to "befriend faithfulness."  Likewise, the HCSB says to "cultivate faithfulness."  David says, "...your faithfulness [reaches] to the skies" (Psalm 36:5, NIV).  Will you make known His faithfulness (cf. Psalm 89:1)? Will you declare His faithfulness (cf. Psalm 40:10, NIV)?   Shall it be declared in the grave (cf. Psalm 88:11)?  "... [With] my mouth I will make known thy faithfulness to all generations"  (Psalm 89:1, KJV).  God is known by His faithfulness:  "Your faithfulness surrounds you";  "You are entirely faithful" (Psalm 89:8, NIV, NLT).

Our security in Christ depends on God's faithfulness, not ours: "If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself"  (2 Tim. 2:13, KJV).  He betroths us to Himself in faithfulness (cf. Hos. 2:20).  We endure in Christ and overcome because of God's faithfulness: He preserves as we persevere!  We are "kept by the power of God" (cf. 1 Pet. 1:5). For we can do nothing apart from Christ (cf. John 15:5).  God gets the glory for our salvation.

"The righteous man shall live by his faithfulness" (cf. Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11; Heb. 10:37-38; Hab. 2:4).  We must be careful not to divorce faithfulness from faith!  They go hand in hand and come as one package--the righteous live by faith and go from faith to faith (cf. Rom. 1:17), ever-increasing in faithfulness.  Never divorce the two, for what God has joined together, let not man put asunder (cf. Mark 10:9).  If we are not faithful, we lack faith, and the flip side is valid also:  if we are lack faith, we'll be unfaithful!  We will hear Jesus commend us:  "Well done, thou good and faithful servant!"  We are not rewarded according to our faith if it's not put into action and applied.  We are rewarded according to the faithfulness we exercise in doing works by faith and as a result and byproduct of faith (cf. Rom. 2:6).

Faith must produce good works, and good works must result from a living and saving faith, or the faith is bogus (as James 2:20 says, "...[Faith] without works is dead").  The Reformed formula was: "We are justified by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone" (which would be antinomianism, or libertinism and lawlessness).  Not having good works to validate your faith makes it suspect!  You could say that faith and faithfulness can be distinguished, but not separated; they never are independent of each other, but work as a team. Faith is merely the flip side of faithfulness!  In the Hebrew, there is one word used for faith and faithfulness--Hab. 2:4 is translated with both words: "The righteous shall walk [live] by faith [by faithfulness]."

The point is that saving and genuine faith expresses itself (you see it in action!); the saints of old all pleased God by their acts of faith (Heb. 11:8, NLT, says, "...it was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him..."); obedience is the true measure of faith, not experiences, feelings, or ecstasies. God is not looking for our achievements, but our obedience! He wants us, not our works are done in the flesh!  Lip service and head belief or intellectual assent don't cut it as the real thing, God wants reliance, trust, and obedience to the Jesus as Lord--the only way "to be happy in Jesus is to trust and obey," the hymn goes!  Jesus promised that he who is faithful in little will be faithful in much to emphasize the value of faith.     Soli Deo Gloria! 

Second-guessing God...

"But the LORD will speak what I will, and it shall be fulfilled without delay.  ... I will fulfill whatever I say,  ...." (cf. Ezek. 12:25, NIV).  "'But have you not heard?  I decided this long ago.  Long ago I planned it, and now I am making it happen..." (Isaiah 37:26, cf. 2 Kings 19:25, NLT).  God is no spectator in man's affairs, but, as the Westminster divines wrote, He:  "...doth uphold, direct, dispose and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence...." "No one can tell him what to do, or say to him, 'You have done wrong'"(Job 36:23, NLT).  "... Who can say to him, 'What are you doing?'" (cf. Job 9:12, NIV). 

God doesn't owe us an explanation for His sovereignty.  Even if God were to explain Himself, He is too deep for us to understand.  God is all-wise and knows best and also good.   God is not accountable to us, but we are to Him!  If God were comprehensible, He wouldn't be worthy of worship and not infinite. This is the profundity of God--there's always more to Him than we apprehend; He boggles the mind!  We cannot ever put God in a box and limit Him to our dimensions--obviously, He lives outside our four dimensions, since He created all four.  Martin Luther wrote Erasmus:  "Your thoughts of God are too human!" Our God is not too small for us!  How big is your God?  Even the dimension of time is a corollary of space and matter, for God created the time-space continuum (cf. 2 Tim. 1:9, Titus 1:2; Gen. 1:1).

"...' It will all happen as I have planned.  It will be as I have decided ... who can change his plans? When his hand is raised, who can stop him?'" (Isaiah 14:24, 27, NLT).  No one can challenge Him as to what He is doing (Job 9:12, NLT, says, "...Who dares to ask, 'What are you doing?'"). Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 4:35, NLT) concluded:  "...No one can stop him or say to him, 'What do you mean by doing these things?'" God has no Plan B or contingency exit strategy and cannot fail!  That is where faith comes in:  We must accept the fact that He knows best and will bring about what is good for us in His will.  We will not understand everything and we are not to get curious and inquire into things that are out of our realm and domain:  Deut. 29:29, ESV, says, "'The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us...."  His decreed, hidden, secret, or sovereign will is none of our business!

We must be careful not to put God in a box or make Him one-dimensional or limited to our specs. We must not be guilty of labeling Him either.  When we fail to appreciate His sovereignty and think God owes us anything, we are limiting Him.  Certain things defy explanation and we must realize that humans are limited and that "the finite cannot contain [or grasp] the infinite" (Finitum non capax Infinitum).  God is not the kind Grandfather who'll let boys be boys!  He intervenes in the affairs of men and directs our activities.  Jer. 10:23, NLT, says,  "I know LORD, that our lives are not our own.  We are not able to plan our own course. Prov. 20:24, NLT, says, The LORD directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?"  Prov. 16:9, NLT, says, "We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps."

A prayer is an act of faith, putting it into practice, and entrusting everything to God's sovereignty: We must pray as if everything depends on God, but work as if everything depends on us, as they say. Consequently, we must live like God is in charge and we have accepted this as fact and reality so that we are never in rebellion or opposition to His perfect will.  We don't have the power to frustrate God's will or sovereignty, and our freedom doesn't limit it either.  God can work His will with or without our cooperation, but we are esteemed by God to be vessels of honor.  Like Paul said, "I venture not to speak of anything, but of what Christ has accomplished through me" (cf. Rom. 15:18).

We can thwart God's preceptive will, (written and revealed), but not His directive, hidden, secret, or decreed will.  "...For who can resist his will?"  (Rom. 9:19, ESV).  We are not to resign ourselves to fate and say, "Que sera, sera, what will be, will be," like Doris Day sang, but trust that God has a purpose for everything that happens (cf. Prov. 16:4).  True faith adheres to God through thick and thin, come whatever may. Even so-called calamity comes from God and the bad times as well as the good times (cf. Isaiah 45:7; Amos 3:6; Lam. 3:38).  And so, let the chips fall where they may and when the chips are down we must still trust in Christ our Rock.

Remember, God's decreed will is none of our business and when we judge His will, we violate His justice, for He is the moral center of the universe and judges us.  We must conclude with Benjamin Franklin that "God governs in the affairs of men."  And realize God's sovereignty over all as John Wycliffe concluded in his tenet:  "Everything comes to pass of necessity."  The same was true of what Joseph said to his brothers:  "...[You] meant evil against me, but God meant it for good..."  (cf. Gen. 50:20). He found out that "Everything works together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to His purpose," (cf. Romans 8:28). 

God even makes the wrath of man to bring Him praise (cf. Psalm 76:10).  God can work through the most diabolical of events, for He was in control at the crucifixion (cf. Acts 2:23; 4:28).  It is not fortuitous that Christ died on Passover to be our Paschal lamb!  Indeed, a full appreciation of the providence of God leads to a walk by faith trusting and thanking God in all things coming to pass.   Soli Deo Gloria!