By Pastor Ben Hill (Reproduced with permission)
“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
In a today’s culture, where opportunism and self-appeasement are so prevalent, it can be discouraging to try to find “faithful” people. The primary word translated to “faith” from the New Testament Greek is pistis, which is the same word used for “faithfulness.” Therefore, it represents both assurance and belief. When we think of faithfulness as in Galatians 5:22, it is generally thought of as “reliability.”
It is interesting, I believe, that in the Greek, ‘pistis’ is used for both faith (a quantitative commodity) and faithfulness (a measurable attribute), as they are different in definition but connected from the same root in meaning. You see, the faith in the Lord that we have is in direct proportion to, and indeed developed by, our exercising of faithfulness. The Bible provides a direct definition of faith: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (see Heb 11:1). The only way to build the quantifiable substance of faith is to practice faithfulness!
I hate to admit it, but I am repeatedly guilty of waiting on God to miraculously endow me with any faith that is required whenever a crisis hits. But although God does often give me the faith required, the need for a miracle keeps repeating itself. However, if I were to exercise faithfulness daily, hourly or even minute by minute, the things that are considered crises now would be relegated to minor bumps in the road that we all travel!
Paul establishes faithfulness as a bedrock of Christian living when in 2 Timothy 2:2 he says, “And the things that you have heard from me, among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” It is said: “practice makes perfect” but I profoundly disagree! Only perfect practice makes perfect! God gives us all the gifts we need to “practice” perfectly. So keep swinging as life throws curve balls and fastballs down and in…but just keep swinging.
Looking at each one of the “fruits of the Spirit” individually has certainly called to attention to so much that is lacking in my life! What about yours? Just a thought…for the day.