Fickle or Faithful?

“Understand, therefore, that the Lord your God is the faithful God who for a thousand generations keeps his promises and constantly loves those who love him and who obey his commands." (Deuteronomy 7:9 TLB)

Do we really understand faithfulness? Some believe faithfulness to equate to 'adherence' - the idea of living by some code of conduct or rules of operation. Others imagine faithfulness relates to allegiance - pledging one's life, actions, finances, etc., to some cause or individual. I think God's type of faithfulness involves all of these, but it always speaks to his dependability and trustworthiness. It is because he is continually, without variation, dependable in all manner of thought and action, his words carry power and his actions hit the mark each and every time. 

What God requires from us is our 'faithfulness' - allegiance, adherence, and attachment. Allegiance speaks to our dedication to him and no other. Adherence speaks to our commitment to his commands. Attachment refers to the ongoing connection he desires us to have with him each and every day of our lives. It is a multi-faceted statement to say that one is 'faithful' to God or his commands. It is impossible to be consistently committed to adherence to his commands if we lack to the ongoing connection or attachment that gives us the grace to walk out those commands in our lives. 

Allegiance is really the sense of devotion we each need to exhibit in our walk with him. We are to consider him first, listen to him the most, and enjoy his presence above all others. To some, this may seem a bit 'selfish' on God's part - demanding this kind of devotion from his followers - but to me, it seems like the natural outcome of being shown grace for a debt I could never repay! To give myself totally to him means I deny myself more than once in a while. Yet, in denying myself, am I really denying myself anything as good as I enjoy when I consider him first? No way! All that comes from putting him first in my life makes everything else I could come up with pale in comparison!

There isn't an easy road to faithfulness, though. It is a road few travel with ease - for it requires denying self and that isn't going to go down too well with our desire to be in control of our lives! The more we align with what his Word decrees, the more we find being 'in control' just doesn't matter. It wasn't all it was cracked up to be! The more we make a consistent connection with him, the more we learn how fickle our own thoughts and actions really are. There is no denying how 'undependable' our thoughts can be - and that leads to some pretty 'flighty' actions at times! The more we make that connection with him, the less 'flighty' our actions become because there is a dependability in his Words and his commands help us to have a 'steadiness' about us that is noticeable. This brings us back to the idea of 'adherence' - we don't always know how out of alignment we are with the rules of sound living until we realize how unsteady our actions really have been. Just sayin!