God Is Faithful

“Words are easy.” Intentional  or unintentional, people promise things all the time which they cannot be certain they will be able to do. This means that even the best intentioned person will often fail to keep their word just because it is not possible.

Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. Psalm 119:90

When we speak about God as being faithful, we will struggle for a way to define that. God is not just faithful (He does what He says), God is the very definition of faithful. God did not become faithful, or strive and work to be faithful, He is by His very existence faithful.

Men need laws of nature and of the universe to explain things (not that they know all), but they know there has to be constancy of some sort. In engineering, we use many “constants” that help us define how things work. God is the only true constant. It is because of Him that there are constants in the universe. Nothing exists or happens outside of God’s existence, and nothing can change God or His existence.

I did not intend for this to become some sort of philosophical thought process, but I want to stress that we are often stuck with applying words to explain something about God that fail to do justice to who He is. It is good for us, from time to time, to just consider and meditate upon who God is, and the characteristics that make Him God.

We need to do this, because a knowledge of who God is will be very critical to our relationship with Him. If we tend to speak and think about God in similar terms to how we speak and think about ourselves, we will lose a great deal of understanding of God’s true nature.

Because God is the self existing one (He exists without any input from anyone or anything else), He is then by definition faithful. Only God can define what can be and what can happen, and only He can make it be and make it happen. Hebrews 1:1-3

Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Mat 24:35

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? Numbers 23:19

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. Isaiah 40:8

God’s Word is eternal and fixed. We can rely on it just like we can rely on gravity to keep us from falling off the earth, just like we can rely on the sun to rise every day. Whether we admit it or not, we like and need something or someone that we can rely on at all times.

We say that a real friend is one that stays by our side in good times and bad times. God’s faithfulness makes Him the best friend we could ever find. He does not change His Word because we are unfaithful. 2 Timothy 2:13

For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. Malachi 3:6

Knowing that God does not change is a great comfort to God’s people. We are certainly not constant or faithful absolutely, but our God is. We don’t have to wonder if God is going to change His mind tomorrow and we are no longer saved. We don’t have to wonder if God will be able to complete His plan. We can rest securely in the faithfulness of our God.

In these uncertain and tumultuous times, we need to stand on God’s faithfulness every day. The world is in upheaval, and there is no faithfulness to be found among men. We cannot rely on ourselves or others for anything, but God will never fail us.

So, I must come back to what I always do. It is exceedingly important to study God’s Word. It is His promise to us, and it encourages us to trust in Him more and more.


Gordon Crook