God is faithful
God is faithful. God is true to His promises. God is reliable. You can count on God to do what He says He will do. God can be trusted. God is believable.
Joshua 21:45 “Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.”
Isaiah 46:11 “I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.”
Deuteronomy 7:9 “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments, to a thousand generations”
God cannot change. God cannot act outside His character. He must always keep His promises because He is good, He is just, He is unchanging, He is all-powerful, He is faithful.
One of God’s signs of keeping His promises was the rainbow He sent after the flood. When Noah and the ark came to rest on dry land, God put a rainbow in the sky to mark His promise that He would never flood the earth again.
Think about a time when you did not keep your promise. Maybe you changed your mind because you were scared. Maybe you changed your mind because you realized the promise you had made would be inconvenient or difficult to keep. Maybe you broke your promise because you lost interest in an activity. Maybe you broke your promises because you simply didn’t have the ability to make it happen.
These things are never true of God. None of those situations can happen to God. Everything that God does begins and ends in Himself. Everything God does is because He is God and out of His goodness and power, He chooses to act. He is never forced to do something or make a promise. He is never without the ability to make what He wants to have happen happen.
In Genesis 3:15 God promises a Savior. After Adam and Eve sin, God says to the serpent Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel”.
God declares that there will be hatred or hostility between Satan’s followers and Jesus’ followers. The “offspring” of the serpent are people who reject God. The “offspring” of Eve is Jesus and those who follow Him. In Genesis 3:15 God tells us that Jesus will “bruise” the head of Satan. This is a death blow. A head wound is deadly and shows victory over the one crushed. Genesis 3:15 says that Satan will “bruise” Jesus’ heel. A bruise on the heel hurts for a little while. It is bothersome and annoying, but not deadly. Satan’s offspring treated Jesus badly. They hated Him, they whipped Him, they spit on Him, they made fun of Him, and they nailed Him to the cross to die. But, Jesus was victorious in coming back to life and proved Himself to be more powerful and awesome. Jesus defeated the power of Satan and sin and death. God was faithful to His promise in Genesis 3:15 even though God waited several thousands years to fulfill the promise.
2 Corinthians 1:20 says “For all the promises of God find their Yes in [Christ]”.
God promises that Jesus is coming back and will take all believers to heaven with Him.
"At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.” (Matthew 24:30-31)
God promises that He has prepared a place for us in heaven.
John 14:3 “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
God promises that He will be with us forever.
Revelation 21:3 “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.”
God promises that all our tears and sorrows will be gone forever.
Revelation 21:4 “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
We can enjoy these promises because God is faithful. We know with certainty that God will do all that He has promised. He has to fulfill His Word because He is infinitely faithful. There is no limit to His faithfulness.
What promise that God has made do you like to think about?
How is your happiness increased by thinking about God’s faithfulness in keeping this promise?
How would your circumstances on earth differently if you kept in mind God’s faithfulness to His promises. (Think about the things that make you sad or the things that make you angry or scared. How would thinking about God’s promises of heaven help you be joyful even in these difficult circumstances?)
Getting to know God in relationship:
How will you talk to God differently and read His word differently because of this attribute?
Written by Wendy Wood, CHCC counselor