Words to the Wise: His Faithfulness is His Love
There's a certain beauty in God's love, which I, yes, do love. Consider the picture of marriage, which is the physical counterpart of the relationship God has with His bride, the church.
A man pursues a woman, and she accepts his offer to take his name and become one with him. In the wedding ceremony, they promise to marry each other and to preserve their marriage till death parts them. If all goes well, the man remains faithful to his wife, and vice versa, and death truly is the only thing that separates them.
There's a beauty in faithful love because it expresses how things should be, and when it comes to our relationship with God, this is how things are.
In Philippians 1:6, Paul says he is confident that God would complete the good work He started in the Philippian church until the day of Jesus Christ. I'm going to be real with you. I struggle with statements that seek to persuade, such as this one. I'd rather know up front if God will be faithful in conforming me to the image of His Son, or if He will not be. If the former? Fine, I'll follow God. If the latter? What's the point of even trying to be good?
But thinking upon it, I realize that Paul has such faith and trust in God's character that he simply believes that God will complete the good work that He started in the Philippians and in us. Why? Paul knew that God was faithful, even to the point of saying that if we are faithless, God remains faithful, because He cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13). Knowing this, Paul can express confidence that God will complete what he started in us, and give the Philippian church (and us) hope. Where is this hope found?
The love inherent in God's faithfulness is tied to his unchangeable character and constancy. God is the same yesterday, today and forever, and he is a God of hope and action: He has a desired end that will happen, and he will work to make it so. His end is for our good, to make us more like Christ, and he has the ability and willingness to do so.
I'm thankful for His willingness to conform me to the image of His Son. Even when I fail to please God, and loathe myself for doing so, God still is never going to give up on me - because He is perfectly and unchangeably faithful to me, and to you.
Even when I behave wrongly out of ignorance or rebelliousness, God is still willing to deal with me gently (Hebrews 5:2) because of His Son, who was a man beset with weakness and thus just like I was (and am).
I'm thankful for the gift of God's faithful love. Are you?
In the book God Has a Name, pastor and author John Mark Comer explains that one of the clauses in Exodus 34:6-7, "abounding in love and faithfulness," is a hendiadys, in which two nouns are put together to help define each other. He explains that in the context of that passage, this means that God's love is his faithfulness, and his faithfulness is his love (2017).
In reflecting on that statement, I can't help but think about how true and wonderful it is. God's love is a love that perseveres, that doesn't give up on us. God's faithfulness towards us is the greatest signifier of His love for us. Indeed, He says that He has loved us with an everlasting love, and that He loved us before the foundation of the world. No man's faithfulness can ever beat the long-lasting, faithful covenant love of God towards us.
So if you are struggling with pleasing God today, take heart. God will complete the good work He started in you until the day of Jesus Christ. Over time, you will become more like the Son because of the Father's love for you.
And that is something I will ever be confident of.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ozi Ojukwu is a girl wildly in love with Jesus. A recent graduate of Cedarville University, she is a 2022 Colson Fellow, having learned about the fundamentals of a Christian worldview and how it connects to all of public life. She is a first-generation Nigerian-American and loves writing poetry and music, dabbles in photography, and is obsessed with popular culture. A bookworm to the core, she loves reading both historical fiction and memoirs. Her favorite verse is Romans 1:16.