The Characteristic Of Faithfulness Series

There are two Hebrew words are often translated "faithfulness": emunah and emeth. The word “emunah” means "firmness, fidelity, steadfastness, and steadiness". The word “emeth” means “firmness, faithfulness, truth". Both of these words, in turn, come from the word aman, which means "to build up or support". This word conveys the idea of "firmness or certainty" and is the original source for our word “Amen”.

WHAT IS THE MOTIVATION BEHIND FAITHFULNESS?

Faithfulness is more than just attending church every time the doors are open. Faithfulness is more then singing in the choir. Faithfulness is not being part of a praise dance team. Those are all part of our show or manifestation of our faithfulness. However, there is a driving force behind faithfulness and until you understand that driving force you will never truly be faithful. The motivation that produces faithfulness is mutual respect and adoration. It is love. Because I love my wife and she loves me we made a commitment to each-other, before God, to forsake all others and be faithful to one another. Why, because of love. Because God loves us He has made a commitment to us and because He cannot lie, will keep that commitment to a thousand generations. Because you have a love for God you are faithful in serving Him. Because of love for God, I will bless His name. Because of love for God I go to church every time the doors are open, because He said in His word fail not to assemble yourself together and because I have love for Him and His people, I will be there regardless.

THE TWO KEY ELEMENTS IN FAITHFULNESS

There are two key elements of faithfulness, consistency and reliability. It is impossible to have faithfulness without these elements. Remember we are talking about developing Christian character. The word Christian means Christ-like. The Bible says in Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to day, and forever.” We in-order to be faithful must be the same from day to day. Understand that this doesn’t mean that some time in our life that we will not go through some emotional changes, because even Jesus Christ himself did that. The Bible says to get angry but sin not, Jesus got angry but yet He sinned not and that was consistent. Therefore we must be the same from day to day and not sin, but remain consistent to doing the Will of God. There are going to be times when we just don’t feel like it, there are going to be times when people, especially church folk will get on your last nerve. Being the son of a pastor I have seen times when I wanted to smack the taste out of someone’s mouth, because of the way the disrespected my parents. But the consistency of my parents to show them love and compassion, even when their feelings were hurt, has literally help me to become consistent within myself.

Because God is consistent we are able to rely on Him, for He is reliable. The Bible says in 1st Thess. 5: 24 “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.” Because God cannot lie He is reliable, because He is reliable our faith in Him grows which produces faithfulness in us. When we are consistent in doing the will, He is able to rely on us and place more upon us to be responsible for. Consistency and Reliability do you truly have these elements or do you have show and popularity.