The Simplicity of Faithfulness

What’s the difference between faith in God and faithfulness towards God?

As I was meditating and studying through the Book of Hebrews this past summer, I realized that one of the fundamental differences between faith and faithfulness is the same as the difference between knowing about love, versus loving someone.

For example, we can know about love from watching romantic comedies, reading a Shakespearean play or sonnet or listening to a love song. However, these things by themselves don’t constitute loving someone. To love someone requires an act of will, a decision, a movement towards the other, often an action that shows care, concern, even sacrifice.

Similarly, we can learn a lot about faith in God by reading stories of impressive men and women. Indeed, Scripture is filled with such stories — Moses leading the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt against the powerful and mighty Pharaoh; Ruth gleaning for grain in Boaz’s fields; David battling against Goliath; Daniel praying in the lion’s den; Mary trusting the angel Gabriel’s message; the Syrophoenician woman beseeching Jesus to heal her daughter; the list goes on — but faithfulness requires that we take a step, make a decision, that our wills are engaged and we move towards God.

Faithfulness is a whole-body experience. It begins with faith in our hearts and minds and then moves to our voices, hands and feet, in the same way that love begins in the heart, but loving someone is an embodied experience. Faith says, “I believe;” faithfulness continues, “Therefore, I will do.”

But being faithful to God can be difficult, can’t it? This is why Paul lists faithfulness as a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). It is only God the Holy Spirit, who raised Jesus’ dead body up from the dead, who can give life to our mortal bodies — not just to have faith in God, but to live in faithfulness towards God and follow Him all the days of our lives. May we always be filled with His Spirit to bear His fruit of faithfulness in the world.