Tag Archives: god is faithful

January 8, 2024 · 5:39 AM

Melting Ice

When God’s promises seem slow or feel like they’re never going to come to pass, how do you respond? Do you keep doing what you’re doing to prepare for them or do you give up hope thinking they’re dead? I heard John Maxwell talk about something similar regarding melting ice. Imagine it’s 27 degrees out and you’re working on raising the temperature and it goes up to 28. The ice is still frozen, but you keep going and it gets to 29. Still nothing. You keep going and it grid to 30, then 31. It can feel like nothing is happening because the ice hasn’t changed at all and you’ve done everything you can. However, don’t give up because once it hits 32, all that has taken place begins to work suddenly.

In Ezekiel 37, God took Ezekiel to a valley of dry bones where God asked if they could live again. Instead of stating the obvious that the situation was hopeless, he replied that only God knew. God told him to prophesy to them to come together because God was going to make them live again. There was a great rattling in the valley as they came together into individual skeletons. Then muscles, joints and skin covered them. A great army stood there lifeless until God told him to prophesy to the four winds to breathe on them. Suddenly they came alive. God then said that Israel had given up on his promise to return them home from captivity saying all hope was lost. However, God wasn’t done. He was going to breathe life into His promise when all hope seemed lost.

I Corinthians 1:9 says, ”God is faithful [He is reliable, trustworthy and ever true to His promise—He can be depended on]“ (AMP). The Bible is full of stories of people whom God’s promises seemed like they would never come. Abraham and Sarah waited 25 years for a son. Joseph was away from his family for over a decade before his dream came true. David remained a shepherd then ran for his life for over 15 years while being promised the kingdom before he became king. If it seems like everything is still or moving in the wrong direction, keep believing, keep working towards it and trust God. He is faithful to His promises even when it seems all hope is lost. 32 degrees is just around the corner.

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September 15, 2023 · 4:46 AM

Trusting God’s Faithfulness

One of my favorite hymns has always been “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”. We sang it all the times when I was young. As an adult, I’ve come to trust and rely on the faithfulness of God. In the original language of the Old Testament, the word faithfulness means to be steady or steadfast. In a world where change is rewarded, it’s good to have something steady to hold onto. When life gets flipped upside down, you can count on the faithfulness of God to be your rock. He doesn’t change with the times or culture. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Like the North Star in a sea of turbulence, He is there faithful and steady to guide us if we will keep our eyes on Him. There’s nothing you or anyone else can do to keep Him from being faithful to His Word. If you need an anchor today, call out to Him. He will be faithful to answer and guide you.

Here are some Bible verses on God’s Faithfulness.

1. The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.

Lamentations 3:22-23 NLT

2. Remember that the Lord your God is the only God and that he is faithful. He will keep his covenant and show his constant love to a thousand generations of those who love him and obey his commands.

Deuteronomy 7:9 GNT

3. Let us seize and hold tightly the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is reliable and trustworthy and faithful [to His word].

Hebrews 10:23 AMP

4. But if we freely admit our sins when his light uncovers them, he will be faithful to forgive us every time. God is just to forgive us our sins because of Christ, and he will continue to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:9 TPT

5. But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen you and keep you safe from the Evil One.

2 Thessalonians 3:3 GNT

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Waiting On God’s Promise

One of the things I’ve learned is that when God gives you a dream or a promise, it’s usually followed by a period of waiting. In my experience, the bigger the dream or promise, the longer you’ll have to wait. It’s natural in the waiting to wonder if God is still at work, if He has still chosen you or if it will ever come to pass. In the waiting, our circumstances can cause doubt, but it’s in the waiting that God positions us and grows us to be able to receive the fulfillment of the dream or promise. He’s at work when things appear to be hopeless. He’s working all things out for your good despite what your present situation is. Don’t give up on the promise. Even though you may have made mistakes, you haven’t disqualified yourself or caused God to abandon His Word to you.

There are plenty of people who went through this in the Bible. We often count them as heroes of the faith, but they were human like us. They had long periods of waiting. They felt hopeless at times. They made mistakes that you would think would disqualify them, but God kept faithful to His promise to them. Abraham waited 25 years for God to fulfill His promise, and Abraham tried to bring about the fulfillment himself. Joseph spent around 14 years waiting as a slave and in prison. David had to wait about 15 Years. In that time he was chased away from his family and friends. He had to live in a cave with a bunch of societal rejects. His home was burned down and his wife was captured just before he became king. The list goes on and on of people who had to wait.

Psalm 57:2 says, “I cry out to God Most High, to God who will fulfill his purpose for me” (NLT). This verse was written by David while he was running from King Saul. He continued to cry out to God while He waited. He continued to trust that God was going to fulfill His plan. Just as God was faithful to David, He will be faithful to you. Remind yourself of the goodness of God. Remind yourself that He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it (Philippians 1:6). If you’re still waiting, God is still working. Pray that He prepares you and positions you while you wait.pray that He will encourage you and give you strength. None of the people I listed above were ready when God gave them the dream or the promise. It was in the waiting that they were matured and grew their faith to be able to faithfully walk in God’s promise. God will fulfill His promise to you when you’re ready.

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Facing Adversity

Most of us can point to a period of adversity in our lives that shaped up. Some of us look back on that time with a bit of sorrow or even bitterness because of how bad it was and where it left them. Others look back on it as a bad time that created a positive outcome in their life. It could have been just as bad as someone else’s, but because the end result was different, they change how they look at it. How do you view that time? How far had God brought you since then? It’s hard to see God’s hand in our lives the closer we are to that time. However, the farther away we get, if we look back, we should be able to see God’s hand in it carrying us or moving us into a position through it. We rarely know everything He is doing, but with some distance and perspective we should be able to see how He can work everything out for our good.

In Genesis, we find the story of Joseph. He was a man that went through 13 years of adversity without letting it make him bitter towards God or others. His own family beat him, threw him in a pit and sold him as a slave. The man who purchased him from the slave traders lived in a foreign land. Joseph was a hard worker despite his circumstances. He was given more and more responsibility until his master’s wife made a pass at him. Because he rejected her, she lied and had him thrown in prison with no parole. He was left there and forgotten even though he helped people there. After he interpreted pharaoh’s dream, he was given all authority in Egypt to make decisions as he led them for 7 years of blessings and through 7 years of famine. During those 14 years, he got married and had two kids, Manasseh and Ephraim.

Genesis 41:52 says, “He named the second [son] Ephraim (fruitfulness), for ‘God has caused me to be fruitful and very successful in the land of my suffering.’” The more Joseph looked back on that time, the more he could see the faithfulness of God who was positioning him so that the dreams God gave him as a boy could be fulfilled. He didn’t allow bitterness to grow in his heart towards God or others. In doing so, he was able to be fruitful and successful even though he didn’t understand as he went through it. Our attitude in adversity, and even after, will often affect our outcome. God is faithful and able to turn any situation around for our good, no matter how bad it was. When I’m discouraged in times of adversity, I find hope when I look at Joseph knowing that God can make me fruitful and successful no matter how bad things get, and that He will be faithful to His Word through it.

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Remembering God’s Faithfulness

Nothing makes you forget the past like the present. The Old Testament shows how we as humans go through cycles of seeing God do something amazing, allowing it to change us, facing something new, forgetting what God has done then panicking. Over time, we tend to forget all that God has done and brought us through. God gave instructions to the Israelites to do different things in order to remember what He did. When we remember, we have faith in Him to do it again. When we forget, our problems seem insurmountable. God will not abandon you. He has a history of meeting whatever you’re facing head on and beating it. Don’t let your present cause you to forget God’s faithfulness. Remember today what He’s done for you in the past.

Here are some Bible verses on remembering God’s faithfulness.

1. You shall not be afraid of them; you shall remember [with confidence] what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt.

Deuteronomy 7:18 AMP

2. Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.

Isaiah 46:9 ESV

3. Remember the wonders he has performed, his miracles, and the rulings he has given.

Psalms 105:5 NLT

4. I remember the glorious miracles of days gone by, and I often think of all the wonders of old.

Psalms 143:5 TPT

5. Yet hope returns when I remember this one thing: Fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise.

Lamentations 3:21, 23 GNT

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March 30, 2020 · 6:04 AM

Trusting In God’s Goodness

In Numbers 11, the children of Israel had left Egypt and were on their way to the Promised Land. They began to grumble about how hard their new life was and it upset God. They then began to crave something they didn’t have: meat. Manna, God’s provision, was getting old. They were sick of having it every day, so they complained that they wanted meat. God told moses He was going to give them meat. So much meat that they were going to get sick of it. He was going to provide it for 30 days, and lots of it. In verses 21-22 Moses replied, “I’m standing here surrounded by 600,000 men on foot and you say, ‘I’ll give them meat, meat every day for a month.’ So where’s it coming from? Even if all the flocks and herds were butchered, would that be enough? Even if all the fish in the sea were caught, would that be enough?” (MSG)

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been guilty of this. I look at my needs, then I look at what I have and I tell God how impossible the situation is. Depending on how desperate the situation is, I may even go a step further, like Moses, and tell Him that even His resources are not enough. I try to take a supernatural God and out natural constraints on Him. This attitude, though temporary, is wrong and it comes from having the wrong perspective. In my desperation, I tend to look at God through the lens of my problem rather than the other way around. This attitude is telling God that I feel He is incapable of taking care of me or unable to meet my needs. God’s response to Moses is the gut check I need in those situations. He said, “So, do you think I can’t take care of you? You’ll see soon enough whether what I say happens for you or not.”

When I start thinking this way, I go back to Philippians 4:19. It says, “And my God will liberally supply (fill until full) your every need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (AMP). I remind myself of God’s promises and of His faithfulness. He doesn’t always answer in the ways that I think He should or could, but He always fills my needs. He has been faithful all of my life, and when I look back on desperate situations and times in my life, I can see the hand of God at work. He has not failed me yet, and I can tell you that He will not fail you either. His mercies are new every morning and His faithfulness is great (Lamentations 3:23). You don’t have to know where or how He will provide for you. Just trust in His goodness, and make your requests known to Him. He will take care of you.

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October 17, 2019 · 5:59 AM

God’s Faithfulness

What would happen if you held a pen out in front of you and let go? If you did it a hundred times? A million times? You’d get the same result. The pen would drop to the ground. No matter how many times you let go, that pen will fall to the ground. Why? Because the Law of Gravity is at work. No matter what you do or what else happens, each time you let go of that pen, it’s going to fall because of the Law of Gravity. It works 100% of the time no matter what.

The same is true when it comes to the faithfulness of God. You can trust it 100% of the time. No matter how many times you rely on God, He will be faithful. Why? Because it’s part of who He is. As much as the Law of Gravity is a part of our world, faithfulness is a part of who God is. It’s something you can rely on over and over again no matter what happens in your life. Your circumstances don’t change the faithfulness of God. The sooner we understand that, the greater the relationship we can have with Him.

Over and over again, we look at things that happen to us and we blame God. We think He must not care or that He’s mad at us. Ever since the Garden of Eden, the Law of Sin has been at work on our world. It is what causes death, decay, destruction, and the things that affect us negatively. It is the ongoing consequence of sin entering the world. It has nothing to do with God’s faithfulness and everything to do with our unfaithfulness. God is the one who comes to bring us life, and has redeemed us.

One of the greatest lies of the enemy is that the bad things in the world are a result of God not being faithful to us. Paul understood this and wrote, “But the Lord is faithful,” (NLT) in 2 Thessalonians 3:3 to remind us. He knew we would need to be reminded over and over again that God is faithful no matter what happens. He is the one who works in all circumstances for your good. It’s time we quit blaming Him for the bad things that happen to us, and start learning to trust His faithfulness to work them out for our benefit.

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Throwback Thursday is a feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other writing ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

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September 13, 2018 · 5:37 AM

The Faithfulness Of God

Throwback Thursday is a new feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other writing ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

I’m not sure why I am constantly surprised by the goodness of God. There are times where I am just caught off guard at His faithfulness. I look at my life and I see all of my short comings and wonder why God would choose to bless me and to pour out His love on me. I know that I am unworthy of any gift that He gives, yet He still opens up the windows of Heaven and pours them out.

I think that’s one of the areas where it is hard to understand God because our minds try to rationalize Him as a human with human behaviors. We know the we are spiteful and hold grudges and we expect Him to. When He doesn’t, it blows our mind. I love how the psalmist put it in Psalm 36:5 when he said that His unfailing love is as vast as the heavens and His faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds. It is so deep and so wide that we can’t begin to understand it.

I always want to rationalize it and understand it rather than to accept it and abide in it. I want to break it down and figure it out instead of just trusting in it. I think David understood it. He knew of the power that God has to forgive and forget. He relied on it and knew he was in trouble without it. You wonder how can an adulterer and murderer like David be a man after God’s own heart? Well it’s because he understood God’s ability to forgive and to forget.

It’s beyond me how God does it. I try to be a man after God’s heart and I fall short. I try to be like Him and I find I’m more like myself. I try to do what He asks and I end up doing what I want. I start off working hard to please Him, but in the end, I do what pleases me. That’s where God’s faithfulness kicks in. 2 Timothy 2:13 says in the Amplified version that even if we are unfaithful and untrue to Him, He remains true (faithful to His Word and His righteous character), for He cannot deny Himself.

How is that possible? How can God remain faithful and true to us when all we seem to do is our own thing rather than His? It’s who God is. He is a God who loves us more than our doubts, our mistakes, our short comings and our fears. He is patient and kind. His love knows no end and is not conditional. He is not human and is not limited like we are. Once we remove those human characteristics of who we think He is and accept His divine nature, we can begin to get a glimpse of who He really is.

There were several in the Bible like David and Paul who got a glimpse of that. I don’t think it is reserved just for them though. God wants to open Himself up to you and me to give us a glimpse of who He is. We fight and push back because we think we are unworthy, but it’s when we finally realize how unworthy we really are that He has us right where He wants us so He can show His faithfulness and love. Don’t push back away from it. Swim in that river of his love that is as high as the clouds and is as vast as the heavens. Accept that you aren’t worthy and trust in His love for you anyway.

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April 24, 2018 · 6:12 AM

Periods Of Pressing

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had several phone calls, texts, messages and conversations with people who are going through some seriously dark moments in life. Their situations are causing stress, sadness, worry, anxiety, depression, confusion and lack of direction. More than that, it’s causing them to seek out God more than they were. We often can’t see it ourselves when we are walking through a difficult period in our life, but those times draw us closer to God. When we draw closer to God, He draws closer to us.

In these times where we are pressed, God brings out of us things that can’t come out any other way. He uses them to grow us and go help us reach the potential He sees in us. He doesn’t allow us to go through these periods without a purpose. The struggle may seem more than you can bear in the moment, but the reward of what God is doing in us when we endure it is immeasurable. If you’re walking through one of these times, it means God still sees more potential in you and is pushing you into a new season.

When I’m walking through a time like that, i hold onto what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9. It says, “We are often troubled, but not crushed; sometimes in doubt, but never in despair; there are many enemies, but we are never without a friend; and though badly hurt at times, we are not destroyed” (GNT). These times feel like we are going to be crushed and destroyed, but God inside of you is stronger than any force outside of you trying to crush you. Keep your focus on Him and not on the thing trying to crush you. Great is God’s faithfulness in these times. You may not always get the outcome you desire, but you will not be abandoned by God in these periods of pressing.

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