God’s faithfulness has nothing to do with apparent success or apparent failure. It simply means that God is with us in every situation.
A growing church with a large congregation, modern buildings and a complex program is no more proof of God’s faithfulness than a small home fellowship with half a dozen people meeting regularly in a lounge room. In both places, all that they are and all that they have are totally dependent on the fact that God is faithful.
Personally, I don’t know any attribute of God more important than this one. In the years that I have been involved in the Lord’s work, I have had occasion over and over again to fall back on the faithfulness of God. There has simply been nowhere else to go.
Vanessa and I have learned one of the great lessons of our lives–that God is faithful and that we must trust him through thick and thin.
One of my favourite hymns is Thomas Chisholm’s ‘Great is Thy Faithfulness’.
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not,
As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.
Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided–
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.
To read more on this topic see Living in the Image of God, Barry Chant (Miranda: Tabor, 2012 available in eBook and Paperback) from which this edited extract is taken.