Stirring Affections: Fruit of the Spirit: Faithfulness

FAITHFULNESS added to our fruit of the Spirit bowl

Faithfulness is when you are trusted in speech, dependable in service, and loyal in friendship

Memory Verse: “His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.'

Matthew 25:21

The Greek word, pistis, is used in our fruit of the Spirit text for faithfulness. It can mean faith as in a person's response of trust regarding God's salvation through Jesus Christ or faithfulness as in the ethical human virtue of "faithfulness." After studying and browsing my husband's commentaries (perk of being married to a pastor), I believe in our text it is the latter, a faithfulness produced in the believer by a faithful God through His Spirit. I heard a preacher put it this way "we see faithfulness in the man and woman in whom the unswerving and inflexible faithfulness of Jesus Christ is manifested; in whom the utter dependability of God is visible." How beautiful! I pray that type of faithfulness is manifested in my life as a visible, tangible illustration for my kids.

I wrote our definition hoping to show that our faithfulness is derived from and points to the faithfulness of God. God is who He says He is (trusted in speech), He will do what He says He will do (dependable in service), and He will never leave us nor forsake us (loyal in friendship).

Our starting place: God is faithful

“For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.”Psalm 57:10

We went outside with our crayons, spread out our blanket, looked up into the clouds, and started to talk about the sky. Can you touch the sky? Can a bird touch the sky? Can an airplane touch the sky? The Bible tells us God’s faithfulness reaches to the sky. Just as the sky keeps going and going, so does God’s faithfulness.

We read and watched the Bible story that went along with our memory verse:

The Parable of the Talents

"trusted in speech"

I wrote down things the boys said they would do for each other, for God, for friends, etc, and we talked about how important it is always to follow through with what you say you will do, to be a man of your word. Later in the day or in some cases the next couple of days, we checked to see if their words had been followed by action.

"dependable in service"

I told the boys a story about a little boy who was faithful in the little things, and as he got older his parents trusted him with more. In a nutshell..."When the little boy was three, he put all his clothes in the dirty clothes basket. When he was four, his job was to make sure everyone had a fork for dinner. When he turned five, he could vacuum the carpet. And on it went. As he grew older, he grew in faithfulness! He was dependable in serving his family. When he turned six, his parents noticed him doing more than what was expected of him (this is part of our definition for honor). His parents saw him learning to see a need and take care of it without being asked. When he was thirteen, his parents could trust him to stay home by himself for short periods of time. When he was fourteen, he could be trusted to care for his younger siblings while his parents went out. When he was fifteen, he could be counted on to cut his elderly neighbor's grass every other Saturday morning. When he turned sixteen, he passed his driver's test and received a driver's license! One day he wanted to go play basketball with a group of his friends, but he didn't have a car. He asked his dad if he could borrow his car. What do you think his dad said?" Discussion time! Over the years the boy had shown faithfulness to listen to his parents and to do what he said he would do. Now his parents trusted him to make good decisions even when other kids were being foolish. (I found a story similar to this at Kids of Integrity; they gave great ideas and activities for teaching character virtues.)

The older two boys have chore boards from Accountable Kids, and my third gets one when he turns four. (They have a whole system you can adhere to, but I've adapted them in a way that works best for our family.) We talked about the chores that the boys have been doing faithfully for the past year, and I let them have input in what new chore they thought we should add for this year. Being faithful now in small things leads to greater responsibility and privilege.

"loyal in friendship"

I tied a blindfold around each boy, and his brothers had to lead him on a "faith walk" around certain obstacles bringing him safely to the finish. Before putting on the blindfold, I asked each one, "do you trust your brother to stay by your side loyal all the way to the finish? To not leave you if he gets tired or hot or bored?" It was a little funny and quite touching to see how seriously they took this charge!

Faithfulness and the Gospel

The last thing I did was pull out mine and Kennon's wedding video!

"to have and to hold from this day forward for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish til death do us part according to God's holy ordinance and thereto I pledge you my faith"

I wanted the boys to know that mom and dad have made a covenant of faithfulness. To be faithful with God's help to one another for as long as we both shall live. One of God's purposes for marriage is to be a picture of the gospel. For people see the love of Christ in the way daddy loves mommy and see the way we are to respond to Christ's love in the way mommy respects and submits to daddy's leadership. And when we fail at loving each other well, I pray they see the grace and forgiveness of the gospel.

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