Each week, I have discussed the fruit of the Spirit and how it affects our lives and those around us. This week, we are exploring the fruit of faithfulness.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23
Faithfulness comes from a place of trust and loyalty. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is a confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Faithfulness requires us to submit our ways to God. It comes from a place of realizing that we need a Savior and that He is in control of our lives. If we are full of faithfulness, we believe God; we trust that He always has our best interests at heart.
As we grow the fruit of the Spirit in our hearts and our lives, they build on each other. When we are faithful, it gives us peace, patience, and joy. This translates into how we treat others with kindness and goodness. As these other traits grow, so does our faithfulness.
Is it much easier to be faithful when everything is going our way? When things go bad, do we lose our faith in God? I do not believe this is necessarily true. When everything goes our way, we tend to forget about God and take a lot of credit for what is going on as what we have done. We do not stop to give Him thanks for what He has done. When things go bad, we turn to God more. We turn to Him looking for direction and comfort. We would not do that if we did not have faith that He would come through for us.
In our spiritual walk, we will experience doubts and fears and wonder if maybe God is not actually there. Maybe He is not as good as He says He is. There will be so many terrifying “maybes” throughout life. There is a misunderstanding that to doubt and fear means that we failed and should feel ashamed. But guess what? Even “Doubting Thomas,” who was looking right at the risen Lord but did not know what to think, was treated with grace and patience by Jesus so he could grow in his faith and understanding.
God has always been faithful to us. Through the Holy Spirit, we are growing fruit (the traits of God that develop in us). As we grow in our faith, we strive to be more Christ like. This is accomplished through the Holy Spirit working within us. God is always faithful to us. We need to always be faithful to Him.
