Our Imperfect Faith and God’s Perfect Faithfulness

Our Imperfect Faith and God’s Perfect Faithfulness

I once had a seminary professor, Paul Lehman, who during a class told us students that he did not always have ahold of God. We students were surprised. He went on to tell us that he rejoiced that even when he did not have ahold of God, God still had ahold of him.

I have never forgotten this important lesson. How do we “hold on” to God? We hold on to God by faith. Is faith important? You bet it is!

But is there something even more important than faith? There is! The most important thing in our relationship to God is that God loves us, God is committed to us, God’s Son died for us, and God is faithful to us!

In fact a Christian’s faith in God is faith in God’s prior and continuing faithfulness. A person must come to faith in God and in His Son Jesus Christ to experience salvation. However part of that faith is knowing that God was committed to us long before we were ever committed to Him. God loved us long before we ever loved Him back. (1 John 4:19)

2 Timothy 2:11-13 says, “The
saying is trustworthy, for:
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—
for he cannot deny himself.”

This passage shows us that if we deny God He will deny us, but it is also true that, because He is faithful,  if we have weak or imperfect faith in Him He will use that imperfect faith to change us!

At Matthew 27:20 Jesus said,
“Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."

So our faith can be tiny like a mustard seed and still be effective, but that is because God‘s faithfulness is always huge – larger than we can possibly ever imagine.

This column first appeared in the Pearland and Friendswood Reporter News. Winfield Casey Jones is a retired pastor and can be reached at wrjones2002@gmail.com.

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