Fruits of the Spirit: Day 8 - Faithfulness

Galatians 5:22-23 -- "But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!"

Faithfulness means being reliable, trust worthy, and constant. It means adhering to truth and being true to your word. These characteristics are not natural. These are characteristics that we know because of our constant, trustworthy, and always perfect God. He is unchanging and has proven over and over again the extent in which we can rely on Him. He deserves our faithfulness, in fact, He demands it.

2 Corinthians 5:7 -- "For we live by believing and not by seeing."

There is a saying that I have loved for years: "Seeing isn't believing, Believing is seeing." Even ones who witnessed the miracles Jesus performed first-hand had hardened hearts and did not understand that this was God, on earth, sent to save His people. However, when we, by faith, believe that God is ever present in our lives, seeks out a personal relationship with us, and still works miracles everyday, we see God in everything. It is when our faith outweighs our doubt that we can see God's hand in everything because He is always there.

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But what does faithfulness mean to us? How can we possibly obtain this characteristic that we use to define our Almighty God? I have long ago learned not to put too much faith in people. That sounds harsh, but we are human and we all make mistakes. No matter how many Fruits of the Spirit we master, we are still imperfect. However, we can seek to be more like Christ in every way and ask forgiveness from Him and from others when we do make mistakes.

Proverbs 28:20 -- "The trustworthy person will get a rich reward, but a person who wants quick riches will get into trouble."

I will only put my faith in the Lord who always guides and guards me. But I do seek to be a faithful person - I want to be reliable, trustworthy and constant. I want to be someone that others can count on and come to for encouragement and support.

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Luke 16:10 -- "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."

Over time, our faithfulness grows. We cannot expect others to trust us immediately, we must earn respect. Even from God, we must be diligent and obedient in the small things before we can do something great. Over time we can prove that we are reliable, trustworthy and constant. As we show these characteristics in the small tasks, we will see greater opportunities and tasks to overcome.

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The Fruits of the Spirit do not come to us immediately. We have to learn and grow over time to be more like Christ. These are characteristics that help us in our journey to be more Godly and seek God in all we do. When we faithfully seek out our source of love and life we can love others faithfully and bring light to darkened places. We can show God's love and light to others.

Day 1 - Introduction

Day 2 - Love          

Day 3 - Joy            

Day 4 - Peace        

Day 5 - Patience     

Day 6 - Kindness    

Day 7 - Goodness   

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