February 26, 2011 … God Is Faithful To Keep Us

Passage of the Day: 1st Thessalonians 5: 23 – 24 [see bold/underlined in context] … 23 May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it.

My Journal for Today: Talk about faithfulness! Yesterday we saw that God is faithful to PROVIDE for us and to PROTECT us. But it gets better! Yes, even when we blow it – and we most certainly do! – God is faithful to forgive us and cleanse us (I’ll bet you know 1st John 1: 9 – if not, check it out; … maybe even memorize it!). And even beyond this, God promises to selectively “forget” our sins (see Jeremiah 31: 34 below as the prophet speaks for God)…

SCRIPTURE: Jeremiah 31: 34 … No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

And yes, there’s even more from God’s faithfulness! His promises continue to mount as He is faithful to perfect believers (i.e., sanctify or complete us) into Christ’s image, which He predestined for us (do a study of today’s verse plus Philippians 1: 6 and Romans 8: 29).

Now that’s faithfulness!!

I love the story that John MacArthur writes in Strength for Today on this date to illustrate God’s wondrous faithfulness. He writes about a dad who tells his young boy to wait in front of a dime store window for him while the father must run an errand (this was in a day when such things were safe). On the way to complete the errand, the car breaks down and five hours elapse until the frantic father can get back to his son, whom he finds waiting and looking longingly into the store window – just as the dad had charged him to do. The dad asks, “Weren’t you worried?” And the boy replied, “No, Dad, I knew you were coming. You said you would.”

And that is God’s faithfulness, especially to obedient children who know, by faith, that He’s going to return, … even for the disobedient children who somehow, at some time in their lives, come to develop the faith of that little child so that repentant child of God will be received into God’s family - forever! And personally, having come from a life of so much disobedience and having been cleansed and redeemed from that sinful life by God’s faithfulness, how could I not cling to the faithfulness of God’s grace to allow me to wait on Him until He returns?

I pray, my dear one, that we’re both like that little child, waiting at the store window, for our Abba Father to come get us, … just as He has promised He would.

My Prayer Today: Until You come for me, Lord; I’m here waiting. Amen