Can this be said of you? Do you possess it? Are you known for it? Some things are described by it. “This is old faithful”, some people say as they pat a fifteen year old car or fifteen year old dog. (Hope no one does that while patting a spouse.) But faithfulness is a fruit. The final three fruits deal with our Christian conduct. And Faithfulness starts the final countdown.
To be faithful is to be firm, sure, established, and steady. I often describe Philly as “steady eddy”. He is a man who is established in his inner place. And it shows. It shows through his faithfulness. In fact, recently we were describing ourselves with adjectives that start with the letter of our name, and I knew his immediately, faithful. (I chose a name that matched the sound instead of the letter as you can tell.)
When we abide, staying faithful is a fruit. In fact, one of the clear indicators of our lack of abiding is our unfaithful actions. Lack of abiding produces unfaithful marriage partners, unfaithful business partners, unfaithful church members, unfaithful members of society. But abiding goes down to the deep place of who we are. It gives us a stick-to-itiveness.
Being faithful to our spouse is a state of being. Being faithful to our business or to our employer isn’t an issue. Being faithful to our church our society is the essence of who we are.
Recently I heard a song called “Clear the Stage” by a young man named Jimmy Needham. He shared about his struggle with pornography from the age of 10 to the age of 18 which also led to a substantial weight gain. He said that once he began to “abide” in deep relationship with his Heavenly Father, that the addiction fell away and the weight fell off. Fruit arrived.
My sweet Mr. Jones will tell you in his own story that once he found a friend and counselor in our ministry partner Ken Edwards, who no longer focused on the symptoms of his shut-down heart, but instead on the fact that his heart was shut-down at all, and how much his heavenly Father loved him, his heart came breathtakingly back to life. Abiding…Fruit.
Abiding…makes us faithful and full of faithfulness. And people need that. Oh my…In this day and age, people desperately need that.
