Have you ever heard someone described this way: ‘He is so kind, a jack-of-all-trades, intelligent, gifted, a wonderful family man, quiet, calm, friendly, and talented—but he drinks’? It is very interesting to hear people’s opinions about someone or something that could be very good in every respect, except for one quality that cancels out everything admirable and brands that person with universal disapproval. What is most interesting and important usually begins after the word ‘but.’
Let us take the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 as an example. I think any man would dream of having such a treasure in his home. The word ‘but’ does not appear in this account, so let us add it at the very end and see what happens. Proverbs 31:27: ‘She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness, but she is unfaithful.’ I think that after such a conclusion, this woman’s virtues would no longer matter very much. Perhaps they would please her lovers, but not her husband.
I come to the third corner of my little house of happiness and, following the method now familiar to me, begin laying the next connecting bond in my building, called ‘I am faithful.’
It would sound strange to describe my faith and love with the added words ‘but he is unfaithful.’ This little ‘but’ reveals who I truly am, not the role I am trying to play. What is faith without faithfulness? Hypocrisy. And what is love without faithfulness? Adultery.
In the words ‘I am faithful,’ the word ‘I’ plays a very important role. It must be present throughout every stage of construction. Without it, my building will become a monument to human wisdom about beautiful things that remained nothing more than an attractive theory and unattainable dreams of something wonderful. I must be directly involved in this process and personally participate in every detail and distinctive feature of my construction.
This ‘I’ is not an expression of a proud spirit, but the open windows of my soul receiving God’s grace and the open door of my heart welcoming the personal presence of the Lord. Otherwise, I become a forgetful hearer.
Sadly, our age is characterized by the following condition. We have become so accustomed to receiving vast amounts of information and doing nothing with it that we carry this habit into our spiritual lives. Faith in God is reduced to attending a worship service once a week, listening to what is sung and said there, taking part in some activity, and then leaving to attend to our ordinary affairs. If someone asks me what the sermon was about this morning or a week ago, I may not even remember. But I will be able to describe how valiantly I fought sleep during it and how delicious the meal was after the service.
It would be sad to discover that all the Heavenly treasures and revelations have become merely part of the stream of information in my life—carefully placed on the shelves of my storeroom of useful things, where they are now gathering dust as they wait for their time to come.
I am faithful. This demonstrates that all of God’s truths have reached my heart, become part of my mind, changed my worldview, and taken practical form in my relationship with God and with the world.
Jesus prayed that I would not be taken out of the world, but kept from evil. This protection is given to me in response to my faithfulness in faith and love.
Consider an ordinary family in which two hardened egoists have decided to become one. Within their union, they first received what satisfied their curiosity and attraction to one another, and then began to discover the true face and individual characteristics of their spouse. Although family ties are the strongest bonds, marriage is still a covenant with conditions—one that presupposes both physical and emotional faithfulness. Faithfulness lays the foundation for a relationship of trust that penetrates so deeply into both hearts that no room remains there for marital selfishness, although selfishness toward society may remain.
Tender care for the members of my family rests upon faithfulness, both on my part and on the part of my spouse. If this bond fails, disaster is inevitable. The family may remain intact, but the relationship will change and will never return to its former purity and holiness.
God expects absolute faithfulness from me—to Him and to the light I have received. He claims my physical and emotional devotion, and He is not ashamed to call Himself my Husband. Our relationship is so close and strong that God’s plan is to make this union binding for all Eternity. There is no divorce in Heaven. And why would I betray the One in Whom I believe and Whom I love? Yet the reality of our time shows that this strong corner must be set into the foundation of the little house of happiness and the entire structure firmly bound together.
When the trials of faith and love come, when the forces of this world and the torrents of information warfare strike me from the sides of faith and love, my faithfulness will support these corners of my life and hold firmly to the Rock, keeping the building from shaking and collapsing. Three legs are better than two and give a structure particular stability. But I intend to complete this construction so that it will be fully finished, beautiful, and strong on every side as it withstands various pressures and attacks. The fourth corner is being prepared for installation, and it needs time to become what God’s plan has determined it should be.
‘I am faithful’ implies that I must possess knowledge worth applying in my life and making the foundation of my worldview. I must also enter into a covenant and, through water baptism, formalize my relationship with the One to Whom I must be faithful.
Imagine an illustration of a strange kind of faithfulness. I am single and live next door to a very kind single woman. I greatly enjoy watching her and occasionally greeting her. I begin to notice that somewhere deep in my heart I have developed special feelings for her, and I even suspect that she cares about me as well. So I decide to be faithful to this woman. I delete all my female friends from my contacts, stop communicating with any women, and begin demonstrating my faithfulness to this neighbor in every way, giving no one any opportunity to befriend me. I decide never to marry anyone, because I am faithful. One day I gather my courage and tell this woman about my faithfulness and love. I assure her that she need never doubt me and can always count on me. For some reason, she looks at me sadly and begins to cry—probably from happiness. After all, you will not find another person so faithful anywhere in the world! I cannot imagine a more foolish situation.
Yet this is precisely how I may relate to the Lord—showing faithfulness to Him without having a relationship with Him. And this may continue for years.
Cohabitation is now very widespread. It has almost become socially acceptable. A person is expected to have ‘a man’ or ‘a woman’—those crude terms somehow suit the arrangement—because everyone lives that way. Is there a relationship? Yes. Is there emotional and physical intimacy? Yes. Then why is it wrong? It is wrong because there is no commitment, no covenant before society and God, and no responsibility. Faithfulness cannot make such a relationship right, because God’s law has been broken and His blessing is absent.
Bible verses for this chapter:
Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 11:13; 14:5; 28:20; Matthew 24:45; 25:21; Luke 16:10; 3 John 1:3–6; Revelation 2:3–4, 10; 3:1