OUR
FAITHFUL GOD
1Cor.
(Adapted
from footnotes)
(Full
Life Study Bible)
No test or temptation that comes
your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to
remember is that God will never let you down; He will never let you be pushed
past your limit; He will always be there to help you come through it. [The Message]
What a wonderful reality that “our God is
Faithful.”
It is an awesome fact that we can hang onto.
First John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins,
He is faithful
and just to forgive us our sins…”
In light of this precious truth, we as
believers cannot justify continually sinning and using excuses such as: “I am
just human”, “God understands and will forgive me”, or “I am not perfect.”
We cannot even use the old pretext, that all of
us continue sinning in word, thought, and deed. Rom.6:1-2 give us solid
teaching against such thoughts.
Also, 1John3: 9 re-emphasizes that true the
believer does not “continue to sin,” “practice sin,” or “keeps on sinning.”
In other words, we as believers cannot make sin
our way of life because we understand God cannot continue living in one who
practices sin.
God gives us the ability to conquer sin; we do
not need to fall from His grace and mercy.
The
Holy Spirit gives us power to overcome to resist the temptation to go back into
sin and affirms that God gives His people adequate grace to do so.
Matthew
Henry wrote this; “Though we
must fear and take heed lest we fall, yet should we not be terrified and
amazed; for
either our trials will be proportioned to our strength, or strength will be
supplied in proportion to our temptations.”
Yes, we live in a world where there are snares and temptations are
everywhere yet we have tremendous comfort knowing that “No Temptation is too
great to bear.”
The word says “such
as is common to man” what is human that is.
We can expect all
sorts of temptations from the world simply because that is their nature.
God’s faithfulness is
expressed in two ways:
a. He
will not allow us to be tempted above what we can bear
b. He
will, with each temptation provide a means by which we can endure the
temptation and in the process, overcome sin.
We must realize the trials of all Christians are but common trials: we
all have the same types of burdens and the same types of temptations; we can
all bear up and break thru what ever comes our way because we have a Faithful
God.
Brother Donald Stamps gives us this nugget of truth
in the Full Life Study Bible footnotes,
“The grace of God, the blood of
Jesus Christ, the Word of God, the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, and the
heavenly intercession of Christ bring sufficient power for the believer’s
warfare against sin and the spiritual forces of wickedness.”
We can be assured of victory over temptation and sin because of this
precious knowledge if we but apply it to everyday life.
When we as believers give over to sin, it does not
mean God’s grace is insufficient or he is not faithful.
It is because we fail to draw closer to God, and to resist the devil and
our own sinful desires by the power of the Holy Spirit.
2Peter 1:3-4 shows us that our lives can be lived as God intends.
His divine power has given us everything
we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by
his own glory and goodness. Through these, he has given us his very great and
precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine
nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
[NIV]
Through the salvation that we
have from Christ, we can do as Paul the Apostle wrote,
“And
we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may
please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the
knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious
might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving
thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the
saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of
darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have
redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” [Colossians 1:10-14]
Our God is faithful and He wants us to be faithful,
“Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be
found faithful,” 1Cor.4: 2. As stewards or servants of Almighty
God, this verse applies to each and every one of us that calls Jesus Savior.
Conclusion;
Again from Matthew
Henry,
God is faithful. Though Satan be a deceiver, God is true.
Men
may be false, and the world may be false; but God is faithful, and our strength
and security are in him.
He
keepeth his covenant, and will never disappoint the filial hope and trust of
His children. He is wise as well as faithful, and will proportion our burden to
our strength.
He will not suffer us to be tempted
above what we are able.
He
knows what we can bear, and what we can bear up against; and He will, in His
wise providence, either proportion our temptations to our strength or make us
able to grapple with them.
He
will take care that we be not overcome, if we rely upon Him, and resolve to
approve ourselves faithful to Him. We need not perplex ourselves with the
difficulties in our way when God will take care that they shall not be too
great for us to encounter.
He will make a way to escape; either the trial itself, or at least the mischief
of it. There is no valley so dark but He can find a way through it, no
affliction so grievous but He can prevent, or remove, or enable us to support
it, and in the end overrule it to our advantage.