The Fruit of the Spirit - Faithfulness

Today we are continuing with the Fruit of the Spirit. Remember Jesus said that we would be known by our fruit. Not our gifts or talents, not our bumper sticker or Christian T-shirt, but our fruit. We realize that fruit cannot be faked. We don’t fake it till we make it when it comes to the Fruit of the Spirt! We must purpose in our hearts to let God take control and lead us as we meditate on His word. Romans chapter 12 tells us not to conform, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind. That way our lives will be proof of God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will. Today, we are looking at the fruit of faithfulness. The Greek word used here for faithfulness is the word pistis. In the context of Galatians 5 it means the character of one who can be relied on: it also means fidelity. Fidelity means: faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support. So are we ready to dive into learning more about the fruit of faithfulness? Good, let’s start by looking at

Deuteronomy 7:9 AMP

9 Know, recognize, and understand therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, Who keeps covenant and steadfast love and mercy with those who love Him and keep His commandments, to a thousand generations,

1. When it comes to faithfulness, God is faithful!

There is definitely no one more faithful than God. He is infinite when it comes to faithfulness. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever been unfaithful to God? I have. There are times when I didn’t make good on my promise to Him. You know what I mean? I’m gonna be at church no matter what, but sometimes, when I’m on vacation, I might not be as faithful to my promise. I’m gonna get up early and read the Bible, but again, stuff “comes up” and again unfaithful. But God is never unfaithful even when we are. It says here that He keeps His covenant with those who love Him to a thousand generations. Usually a generation in the Bible as in the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew is roughly 30 years. So this would mean roughly 30,000 years but I believe it’s just saying God’s faithful for eternity! So the fruit of faithfulness give us the ability to keep a lot of our promises.

Daniel 6:1–4 AMP

1 IT PLEASED [King] Darius [successor to Belshazzar] to set over the kingdom 120 satraps who should be [in charge] throughout all the kingdom, 2 And over them three presidents—of whom Daniel was one—that these satraps might give account to them and that the king should have no loss or damage. 3 Then this Daniel was distinguished above the presidents and the satraps because an excellent spirit was in him, and the king thought to set him over the whole realm. 4 Then the presidents and satraps sought to find occasion [to bring accusation] against Daniel concerning the kingdom, but they could find no occasion or fault, for he was faithful, nor was there any error or fault found in him.

2. The gift of faithfulness makes you live excellently!

Daniel had an excellent spirit in him. For this reason, Daniel was the chief president, the top out of the three appointed by the king. Because of that the rest of them were jealous of Daniel and wanted to make some accusations against him, however because he was faithful, they could find nothing to accuse him of. When we are faithful, having the fruit of faithfulness in us, it creates excellence in everything we do. To be excellent means doing everything extremely good or to be outstanding. Wouldn’t you like to be that way? Well the fruit of faithfulness helps us to develop excellence in our lives.

Luke 16:10–12 NLT

10 “If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities. 11 And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven? 12 And if you are not faithful with other people’s things, why should you be trusted with things of your own?

3. Being faithful with small things brings increase!

So many times we want to do the big stuff. You know we want to make a big splash in life. We don’t like the small insignificant things, the things that don’t get noticed, we want make out mark on the world. However, we don’t get to do the big things until we are faithful in the little things. You don’t get promoted to supervisor until you are faithful doing the base jobs. So when we are faithful in the little things, more will be added to us. No one starts at the top. So when we have the fruit of faithfulness in our lives, we are faithful in the little things.

1 Corinthians 4:1–2 TPT

1 So then you must perceive us—not as leaders of factions, but as servants of the Anointed One, those who have been entrusted with God’s mysteries. 2 The most important quality of one entrusted with such secrets is that they are faithful and trustworthy.

4. As Christians, we must be faithful!

We have a responsibility as Christians. Our responsibility is to go into all the world and preach the Gospel and to make disciples of all nations. So we are called to go and preach and teach everywhere. In order to be effective, our walk has to line up with our talk. We have to live what we preach and the proof that we live what we preach and teach is our faithfulness. When we can be the friend that people can rely on, when they know we will do what we say we will do, then they will be opened to hear what we have to say. It is required of us to be faithful. So when the fruit of faithfulness is in our lives, our testimony will be so much more effective to the people around us.