Would you come on a journey with me to look into a characteristic of God that the Word says endures forever!? Well, genuinely, He endures forever, so all of His characteristics do as well.
But did you think about God's Faithfulness enduring forever? What does that mean to you?
Has He shown Himself Faithful to you? Has He demonstrated to you that He will never leave you, nor forsake you? Have you ever lied, cheated, stole? Done something so wrong you thought you were never going to find your way home? That God would never remember you? I have news for you...and GOOD NEWS that is!!
God is not only patient with us, He is gentle and kind and caring. He understands our weaknesses and He is always working to bring us back to Himself. He is a jealous God and He is our husband. I will look at these names He calls Himself in just a bit.
First, lets look at His character of Faithfulness in Psalm 117:2.
"For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD."
What do you think of when you hear the word, faithful? Do you think of committed? Perhaps you think of the word, true...?? In the context of marriage, we certainly look at being faithful as both of those, committed AND true.
Well, the King James version says just that! The word Faithful translated in the NIV is translated as "Truth" in the King James.
For His merciful kindness is great toward us, And the truth of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD! (Psalms 117:2 King James).
So, faithful and true! Does that bring to mind Revelation 19:11?
Remember earlier I said the Lord is our husband?
I get that from Isaiah 54:5.
For your Maker is your husband—
the Lord Almighty is his name—
the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer;
he is called the God of all the earth.
I remind you of this because our lives in Christ are lived within a covenant and God is committed to that covenant. Even if we are unfaithful in this relationship, He remains Faithful. It is who He is. He can never be anything but Faithful because His character never changes.
2 Tim 2:13 says: "If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself."
Let's look at the definition for the Hebrew word for "Truth", in Psalms 117:2.
Hebrew: אמת
Transliteration: 'emeth
Pronunciation: eh'-meth
Definition: stability; certainty, truth, trustworthiness: - assured ({-ly}) establishment faithful, right, sure, true ({-ly} verity.
These are the number of times each translation of the word is used in the King James version.
KJV Usage: truth (92x), true (18x), truly (7x), right (3x), faithfully (2x), assured (1x), assuredly (1x), establishment (1x), faithful (1x), sure (1x), verity (1x).
Occurs: 127
In verses: 125
So does this paint a picture for you? Does it show you that God will never leave you or forget you, no matter what? We are His. We are His bride and He is faithful to His church, to each one of us.
I mentioned earlier that God is Jealous. Lets look at that characteristic before we go. You might have heard that there are different types of jealousy. The one kind is bitter and angry. This is not the kind of Jealousy God speaks of when He describes Himself.
It is the kind that will not give us up for anything or anyone. He doesnt want to share His glory! Again, we use the marriage covenant as an example. When two people are married, they enter into a covenant relationship. God brings those people together and they (we) belong to eachother.
And the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” Mark 10:8-10
In the same way, when we are born again, we have entered into a covenant with God and we become His possession. We are His bride, the church.
Any sort of devotion to anyone or anything above Him is spiritual adultery. God's Name is Jealous.
For thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: Exodus 34:14
Are you worshipping Him? Or some other false god? Come to Him and He will confine you to His heart, and never let you go. Now that's true love.
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