...Faithfulness...

Last week we examined goodness, agathosune, "moral excellence, striving to be like God". This is not an attempt to become God, but an effort to become more like Him in what we do, and who we are. It is something we will never attain, but something that we are called to continuously strive towards.

Out of goodness comes the next attribute listed in the Fruit of the Spirit, Faithfulness. The Greek word is pistis, translated as "good faith, honestly, integrity". I love words, and sometimes with word definitions I look up the definition of words withing the definition. I looked up honesty, "truthfulness, sincerity, frankness; uprightness, firmness" and integrity, "adherence to moral and ethical principles." Pistis carries the idea of trustworthiness.

As we studied this characteristic we looked at three stories in the Bible. The first is the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife in Genesis 39. Joseph is in Egypt after being sold by his brothers. In Egypt he is bought Potiphar and God blesses Joseph. Potiphar puts Joseph in charge of his house, and God blesses Potiphar because of Joseph.

Potiphar's wife notices that Joseph is a rather good looking fellow, and tries to seduce him. Repeatedly she offers herself to him and each time he says no. One day Joseph goes into the house to do his work, but none of the other servants are there. Potiphar's wife grabs his robe in another attempt, but he flees and leaves it in her hands. A lie is started, Joseph is falsely accused and thrown into prison, but in prison God still shows him favor and he is put in charge of the prison. Eventually, Joseph is released, God shows him favor again and he is made second in command of Egypt. Joseph goes from a slave to one of the most powerful men in the world.

With Joseph we see faithfulness to God. He served his earthly masters well and refused to compromise even when he could have. We see his faithfulness to people as well. He respect Potiphar's marriage, again, he worked hard and did well. God blesses this faithfulness.

Next we looked at Daniel, and Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego. In Daniel 1 we see that the four of them refuse to eat the food of the king and choose to eat only vegetables. God blesses them and gives them favor and wisdom. In both Daniel 3 and Daniel 6, we see that these four men are each given an opportunity to deny God by either bowing to an idol or praying to the king. If they don't the face death. But all four of them refuse to worship any one but God.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, are thrown into the furnace, but God saves them. Daniel is cast into the lion's den, but God closes the lion's mouths and Daniel is spared. The were faithful to God, and God protected and blessed their faithfulness.

In these we saw positive examples of faithfulness. In all of these stories we see men who had the opportunity to compromise but refused. This is faithfulness, but faithfulness has another aspect. Sometimes we do compromise, sometimes we do mess up, but in this we can still show faithfulness.

2 Samuel 11, David, the man after God's own heart, commits adultery and then murder. In 2 Samuel 12 the prophet Nathan comes to David and calls him out on his sin. David responds, "I have sinned against the LORD." David owned his sin. That is honesty, that is integrity, that is pistis.

As I strive for goodness, faithfulness comes out of it. Goodness stems from kindness which is doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do. Kindness comes from patience, taking the endurance of hardship without complaint or retaliation to the next level. Patience comes from the contentment of peace. Peace comes from joy, the reason to rejoice. The reason to rejoice is the unconditional love which we have from God.

Peace be with you