Forever Faithful
GOD IS FAITHFUL. Unfortunately, we aren’t— at least not always. We may be faithful to varying degrees and for certain lengths of time, but we aren’t perfect. Our hearts are not yet fully mature, we have not yet fully removed every hindrance to the faith he has put within us, and we haven’t yet lost the ability to sin. Even so, as Paul assured Timothy, God remains faithful. He can’t deny who he is.
That doesn’t mean God answers our prayers whether or not we believe his promises or that he continues to feed willful rebellion with his blessings. It does, however, mean that we base our faith on his nature, not ours— that we trust him because he is trustworthy, rest in his promises because of his integrity, and invest our entire selves in his commitment to us. We may stumble at times, perhaps even going through periods of questioning and holding weakly to our faith. But he remains faithful throughout. He is patient and kind because he is love, and love is always patient and kind (1 Corinthians 13:4). He walks with us throughout our journey of faith and carries us when we falter.
We therefore don’t have to feel the pressure of developing perfect faith in order to receive God’s good and perfect gifts. We can grow into it, knowing that our faith rests not in our own wavering spiritual maturity but in his constant character. He is always calling us forward in faith, so we are never to use his promise of faithfulness as an excuse to be faithless. But he is far more interested in the direction of our hearts than their perfection. Our inconsistencies have no effect on his unchanging covenant of love.
Pursue faith and faithfulness with all your heart, but give yourself the grace to pursue and believe imperfectly. God gives you that grace, and you are rightly agreeing with him when you apply it. Just as you can’t force a tree to bear fruit, you can’t force your faith to grow. You can only nurture it with the right conditions, and it will soon become all God intends it to be.
This is an entry from One Year Praying in Faith by Chris Tiegreen, available at OMF Lit Bookshops and shop.omflit.com for P365.
The faith journey can be hard, but it doesn’t have to be.
Abraham, Joseph, David, Paul, and even Jesus himself―all heroes of the faith who experienced both the soaring grace of answered prayers and crushing sorrow when God seemed unwilling to respond or too far away to hear. And yet, even in the darkest times, God was working, writing an unseen story of redemption that would save the world.
When we pray, how do we see beyond the immediate and into the eternal? How do we know when to keep praying and when to give up; when to consider something a promise from God and when to recognize that it was from our own imagination? Why does silence from God rarely mean no and almost always mean come closer?
The One Year Praying in Faith Devotional answers these questions and many more, taking you through a 365-day journey that will help you experience a prayerful relationship with God like never before.