Episode #392 Faithfulness Without The Pressure to Perform – Fruit That Grows in Freedom

Hey, friend. When you think about being faithful to the Lord, does that feel heavy to you? As I was preparing for today's episode, I realized that for a lot of years, faithfulness felt really heavy to me. It felt like this ongoing pressure that I was constantly failing at because I still sin. There are ways that I miss the mark. There are times that I lose my temper or I run short on patience or I make selfish choices. And so as I was thinking about this, I realized that faithfulness felt like this perfect metric that I could never live up to.

And as those who follow Christ, we want to be faithful to Him our whole lives long. But there can come with that this temptation to feel like we're always behind and we're always trying to perform better for Him, which leaves us feeling exhausted. But the encouragement I have for you today is that faithfulness is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, which means it's something that God produces in us, not something we have to produce in and of ourselves.

Now, we do have a partnership with Him in this. We partner with God as He does His transforming work in our lives. We don't resist the Spirit. We seek to respond to His instruction and correction and transformation as He renews our loves and transforms our mind and our heart. But even with all of those things, God still does the bigger work.

We are the branch, and He is the vine. And as we live connected to Him, as we go through life with Him, He then produces His supernatural fruit in our lives. And what we're talking about here with the spiritual fruit of faithfulness is a steady dependence on God.

Now, I love this because even with that definition, the dependence is not on us. The dependence is us on Him.

“God, I can't possibly stay faithful to you in and of my own will. In and of my own ability, I will fall short. Even when I sin, I then can repent and choose differently and come back to you, and your Spirit at work in me will grow faithfulness. It grows in me steady dependence that increases over time. That even when I falter, I get back up because I depend on you. And I receive the restoration you offer me because I depend on you. And I keep walking in step with you because I depend on you.”

I hope that takes a load off for you today.

And I wanna read for you Lamentations 3 verses 22 and 24, and it talks about the Lord's faithfulness, which is the type of faithfulness that He produces in us.

Listen to what He is like in His faithfulness:

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

Faithfulness isn't you having to prove yourself to God. It's you staying connected to Him. Your soul doesn't say, "I put my hope in Him because I've done so well today."

It says, “The Lord is my portion. He's the one who I'm after. His steadfast love never ceases. His faithfulness is great, and so I can depend on Him. Therefore, I hope in Him, even when in and of myself I falter.”

And the partnership that we have with God is growing in what faithfulness looks like for each one of us in the season that we're in. Sometimes that faithfulness looks like growing in an area of spiritual discipline. Sometimes that faithfulness is an aspect of trust. Sometimes it's walking out in obedience something God has said to us. Sometimes it's rest in obedience to His invitation.

I don't know what faithfulness looks like specifically and uniquely for you today, but I know that God does, and so here's a question that you can take to Him:

God, what does faithfulness look like for me in this season?

And then keep talking with Him as you walk out what He shows you.

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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