A Truth to Believe

What does it mean that God is Faithful?

The God of the Bible is a God of faithfulness and steadfast love (Gen. 32:10). He is the LORD, the faithful God (Ps. 31:5; 1 Cor. 1:9), whose very name is "Faithful and True" (Rev. 19:11). His faithfulness means he is always true to his word. He is who he says he is and always does what he promises (Rom 4:21). Because God does not change, his promises never fail (2 Tim. 2:13). Everything he has spoken will surely come to pass (Ps. 145:13).

God's faithfulness is rooted in his unchanging, trustworthy character. He is a God of faithfulness (Deut. 32:4; 1 Cor. 10:13) who abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness (Exod. 34:6). From generation to generation, God remains faithful (Ps. 100:5). In every way, at all times, and for all eternity, God is and will remain true to his word (Ps. 100:5). Truly, "Great is your faithfulness" (Lam. 3:23)!

Because God is faithful, we can trust every one of his words. We can rely on what he says about himself, his promises, the past, the present, and the future. Confident that "he who calls you is faithful" (1 Thess. 5:24), we can place complete trust in God to be and do exactly what he has promised (Rom. 4:21).

God’s faithfulness is meant to be a place of refuge for his people (Ps. 91:4). We can trust our God and build our lives on his faithfulness, entrusting ourselves to him (1 Pet. 4:19), because he forever remains true to his word (Ps. 25:10; 117:2).

Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations (Deuteronomy 7:9).

Something about Living

God has filled the Bible with many wonderful promises for his children. For example, in Isaiah 41:10, God says, Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

God promises to strengthen and help his people. But how do believers personally experience this strength and help in their daily lives?

The apostle Paul reveals one way God fulfills this promise. In Colossians 1:28–29 he writes, Him, we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

Paul toils, labors, works, and struggles with all his might to present others mature in Christ. Elsewhere he says, "I worked harder than any of them" (1 Cor. 15:10).

By any human standard, Paul worked incredibly hard. Yet notice how he describes the source of his labor. In Colossians 1, he says he was "struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me." Likewise, in the full context of 1 Corinthians 15:10, Paul writes, "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me."

Paul did not labor merely with his own strength and he knew it. He labored with God's energy, which God "powerfully works within" him and which Paul describes as "the grace of God that is with me."

So how did God fulfill his promise, "I will strengthen you, I will help you," in the life of the apostle Paul? One way was by energizing Paul for the work to which he had been called.

Paul seems to be showing us that when we labor to accomplish God's purposes—in this case, helping others mature in Christ—God provides supernatural enablement in and through our own efforts. Rather than working apart from us, he works powerfully within us.

One way God fulfills his promise to strengthen and help his people is by empowering them to do the work he has called them to. Reflect on this––your labor is supported by God's own strength. Isaiah 40:27–31 develops this truth even further. You may have some of these verses on a coffee mug or T-shirt, but there are profound riches here:

[27] Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God”? [28] Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. [29] He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. [30] Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; [31] but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Verse 28 reveals from where God's enabling power comes––himself. Verse 29 shows two kinds of enabling that he gives to his people.

First, "He gives power to the faint." The Hebrew word translated power refers to strength, ability, or capacity. The picture is of someone weary and running low on their natural strength, but then God rejuvenates such capacities. God does not merely create our physical and intellectual abilities; he continually sustains them. Even when we are tired, the strength we possess to keep going is a gift from him. God's sustaining power upholds every breath, every thought, every ounce of endurance.

Second, "To him who has no might he increases strength." Here Isaiah describes someone who is completely powerless—someone who has exhausted every natural resource and has nothing left to give. To such a person, God "increases strength." The emphasis is not merely on sustaining existing ability but on supplying what is humanly lacking. When God's people reach the end of themselves, he can provide strength beyond what they possess by nature.

Taken together with God's promise in Isaiah 41:10 and Paul's testimony in Colossians 1:28–29 and 1 Corinthians 15:10, we see one way God faithfully fulfills his promise to strengthen and help his people: he supplies all that they need for the work he has called them to do. Sometimes that means sustaining the physical, intellectual, and emotional strengths and abilities he has already given us. At other times, it means providing extraordinary endurance, clarity, focus, stability, or stamina beyond what we could explain by our own natural capacities.

Take away the reality that you are never working and laboring in your own effort. Remember, God is powerfully at work within you, especially during ongoing struggles. He is strengthening us and helping us naturally and supernaturally.

God is faithful to his promises because he is a faithful God. Even when we cannot fully explain how God fulfills every promise, we can rest in this certainty: he is always faithful, whether we understand the means or not.

A Quote

"The plain fact is, we often do not know what God is doing now. And the crucial truth is, we don’t need to know what God is doing now to follow him in faith.”

Jon Bloom

A Resource

One of our favorite devotionals is Jon Bloom's True to His Word. This is an excellent little devotional that focuses on God's faithfulness to his promises.