Nehemiah 9:8 – When the priests prayed, they mentioned Abraham and said to God about Abraham, …“You found his heart faithful before you and made a covenant with Him”

From the way this verse is, it implies that God watched Abraham’s lifestyle closely and carefully for a while. And when He found him to be faithful, God blessed him and made a covenant with Abraham.

• Before the blessings and success, there is a period of time where you will be observed and tested in the area of faithfulness.
• Biblical principle is that if you are faithful in little things, you will get rewarded with bigger things. Matthew 25:14-30
• “A faithful man will abound with blessings, But he who hastens to be rich will not go unpunished.” Proverbs 28:20. What this means is that faithfulness should always be our first priority, not success.

So as Christians, It is SO SO important to be faithful first before we try to be successful or prosperous. God looks at our hearts and checks our lives for faithfulness.

4 Steps To Being Faithful

1. Follow Jesus Christ – Romans 13:14

Romans 13:14 “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts”.

Greek writers speak of putting on somebody famous…Put on Plato or Socrates meaning to take them as instructors, to follow them as a disciple. Thus, to put on the Lord Jesus means to take him as a pattern and guide, to imitate his example, to obey his precepts, to become like him and to become His disciple.

If you want to cross a field to reach a certain spot, you don’t want to look at your feet. You want to look at the certain point right on the other side of the field. That’s how you will live like Jesus. You keep looking at Jesus and you keep imitating Him, you keep following Him and obeying Him. Slowly by slowly you will become more faithful like Jesus.

There was a General posted to Fort Benning in USA. Fort Benning was in a run-down condition and needed to be renovated and fixed up. The General could have issued orders to get the fort fixed up but he got paintbrushes, equipment, paint and other things and started fixing up his own house. Then some of the staff on his block saw the General doing that and they started to do it to their own homes and then other blocks joined in and slowly by slowly the whole of Fort Benning was fixed up because everyone followed the General’s example.

We put on Jesus by following His example. He lived a faithful life before God and so we follow His example and live a faithful life of obedience in His Father’s will.

2. Ask For A Changed Heart

Ezekiel 36:26 “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh”.

Our heart should become hearts of faithfulness. God said that He will take away the heart of stone and replace it with the heart of flesh. That is a soft and changed heart.

We can only follow God properly if we have a changed heart. We cannot force someone to attend church or be early to work every day or be faithful in other areas. It can only happen with a changed heart.

The prostitute had a changed heart and went a bought expensive perfume in an alabaster box. She poured it on Jesus and washed His feet with her tears and hair. Zaccheus was a hated man. He was a tax collector who was not so honest. When Jesus visited his home, Zaccheus had a changed heart and gave back to the people whatever he stole.

We will willingly serve God faithfully when our hearts have been changed.

3. Be Filled With The Holy Spirit

Galatians 5:22- One of the fruit of the Spirit is faithfulness.

A sign of being filled with the Holy Spirit is faithfulness. If a Christian is faithful in their marriage, faithful at work, faithful in serving God, then we can truly say that this person is filled with the Spirit and is led by the Holy Spirit. Being filled with the Spirit is not a one-time thing but we need to be continuously filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18)

Aunty Va is one of the most Spirit-filled people I know and have the privilege to meet. She was the 1^st church member of our church 25 years ago and she is still very committed to the church. If she is in Nadi, you will find her in church.

She is a great example of faithfulness. We need to be good examples to our children and people around us so that it will teach them to be faithful no matter what.

I know that there are situations that you have to leave a church or a marriage because it has become too poisonous but let the Holy Spirit guide you in keeping faithfulness as long as possible.

4. Be Strong In The Grace Of Jesus

2 Corinthians 12:9  “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

God’s grace is available to help us to live a faithful life. Even if we are not faithful, we can change and become faithful people by God’s grace. I don’t think that anyone really wants to live unfaithfully to their wife or husband or to the Lord or at work.

So if we really want to live faithfully, we need to start living by the Grace of God. Paul was struggling and asked God to remove the thorn in his flesh. But Jesus didn’t remove it. Instead Paul was to keep doing his ministry and the in his weakness keep trusting God to help Him. That’s when the Grace would flow. Even when life gets tough and so difficult and it feels like a thorn is poking you, keep being faithful and do the right thing for God, your family and at work and God’s strength will flow in and strengthen you.

How many of you sometimes feel a thorn poking you and you struggle to keep doing the right thing?

When you are tempted to ne unfaithful, that’s the time when you need to simply keep doing what you should be doing and trust God.