Faithfully, Reliably

"The one thing we can rely upon is the Word of God. He is reliable. God's Word is reliable.  God Himself is reliable."

THERE IS A QUOTE my mother used to say, something about friendships which come and go. In life, some friendships are secure. I have friends who I love who have known me for many years. But others fade with time and circumstances. However, as the quote goes, the one thing we can rely upon is the Word of God. He is reliable. God’s Word is reliable. God Himself is reliable.

Life is sometimes a figment. We walk outside, and it seems like the sky is green and the grass is blue. The sun neither rises nor sets but moves sideways. I’ve been there, where I’m walking but I’m not sure upon what. My emotions in a wreck, my thoughts uncertain, I couldn’t tell you where my next breath would come from. But even in that scattered state, my gut clenched, my teeth clenched, what I knew that could not be shaken from me was the faithfulness, the reliability of God.

I’ve been deep in a study of Leviticus recently, not a book people typically spend a great deal of time in. But from the first chapter, what has opened up before me is the most fascinating picture of Jesus’ sacrifice. Every part of what was written in the Law applies to Him, from the type of animal chosen, to the gender itself (for instance, in the sacrifice for sins of ignorance, a female was used because the first sin of ignorance was Eve’s), to the description of the priests and the tabernacle itself.

What hit me solid yesterday, though, was a greater truth and the answer to a question I kept asking. Why were the penalties so severe? We must always read the Old Testament knowing who God is in the New Testament because He is reliable and faithful. He is unchanging. So a loving God who SO LOVED the world was not any less loving nor any less merciful at any point in time. Why then the severity? It comes back to that. But realize, as I did, that our Lord and Savior wrote those Laws. He who was and is and is to come, united with the Father and the Holy Spirit as Jehovah, wrote the Laws which His sacrifice would fulfill. They were of utmost importance to Him and the value of what they symbolized meant for all generations of the entire world.

Hebrews 11:39-40 in the Message Bible puts it this way: “Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.” We are meant to complete a whole, to write the entire story from first to last, from beginning to end, the story which Jesus Christ came to earth to fulfill. He is faithful to it, the same yesterday and He is today as He will be tomorrow.

And He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. He is Christ, the Anointed One, the anointing being the Holy Spirit. They are one. So where one is unchanging, where one is reliable so is the other, and this spans forward in time to our modern lives where truth, as spoken by men, is friable. It is rare to find an individual who completely keeps their word. There is a need in us for this, a need to believe that what is spoken to us is definite, a need to trust the one we have received the promise from.

We want to walk upright in the green grass, the blue sky overhead, and not have it wither around us, and He who is faithful, who performed every word of His promise, is faithful to it still. He swore to His own hurt to do what He did, and He promises us now peace and joy in believing. He promises abundant life, eternal life, and everlasting life (these are not precisely the same thing). He says He will do exceeding, abundantly above all that we ask or think. He promises us wisdom and revelation and understanding of His Word, of our lives, of our future. He promises He has a wonderful plan for us, with goodness and mercy following us richly to enjoy it.

We can have faith in Him. In spite of the wind and the rain, in spite of the drought, during times of sorrow and grief, during times of great rejoicing, whatever our life looks like on the outside, on the inside we have Jesus. Inside we have God to walk with us, faithfully, reliably every step of the way.

“Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)” (Hebrews 10:23)

“For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” (Hebrews 13:5)


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com