Great Is Thy Faithfulness預覽

HOW WE BECOME FAITHFUL

Jesus once compared Himself to a grapevine, and us to the branches. When we stay connected with Him, the sap of the Holy Spirit flows through Him to us, producing fruit, more fruit, and much fruit (John 15:1–8).

The apostle Paul described this fruit, which includes faithfulness, in Galatians 5.

That’s why we’re commanded to be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), which means daily offering our lives to Christ so every cell of our being can be saturated with the Holy Spirit, like a sponge dripping with water. In the process, we are “transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

What does it look like to be transformed into Christ’s image? It’s not a matter of looking like Christ physically or dressing in His style of clothing. The verse is talking about absorbing and reflecting His essential personality and core attitudes—His character traits.

According to Galatians 5:22–23, there are nine of them.

First, Jesus is loving, and His love for you and me drove Him to the cross. Greater love has no one than this, that He lay down His life for His friends (John 15:13).

Second, He is joyful. If we could see Him in person, His joy would radiate like sunshine.

Third, He possesses incredible peace of heart and mind. He never has a panic attack, never loses His composure.

Fourth, He is patient and forbearing. He puts up with our faults and failures as He forms us into better people.

Fifth, He is kind. Children loved being lifted into His arms and blessed.

Sixth, He is good—essentially, intrinsically, perpetually good, with no trace of evil or meanness.

Seventh, He is faithful. Every word He speaks is true, trustworthy, genuine, and unfailing.

Eighth, He is gentle. We can often feel His gentle touch on our hearts.

Finally, He is self-controlled. Self-control is the ability to do what we don’t feel like doing, and the determination not to do what we do feel like doing, as regulated by the will of God.

This is the fruit of the Spirit. When we’re fully yielded to Christ, the Holy Spirit gradually but actively reproduces those nine attitudes within us. We slowly but steadily grow more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled as husbands, wives, friends, and workers in His kingdom.

Because Jesus is faithful in every way, then, we become steady, mature, and trustworthy, like Him.

The Christian life is a moment-by-moment miracle, lived by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit takes the joy and peace of Christ and reproduces them in and through our lives. 

He takes the love of Christ and manifests it through us.

—Robert C. McQuilkin