“God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” 1 Corinthians 1:9
Throughout the Old and New Testaments, we find that God reveals Himself as the Covenant Keeping God. What is a covenant but that commitment by two individuals to honor and agreed upon a certain course of action, work, or state of being and blessing. The value, or worth of this covenant, is found in the One who is the originator of it, God, Christ, by the Holy Spirit. God’s covenant is not man-made, although man can agree concerning it, and this even though there are very real limits in his capacity to honor it. As for the importance of the Covenant, and the reason for its existence, we find the answer in part when Scripture speaks of Christ as being that “spiritual Rock” which followed the Israelites in the desert on their way to Canaan. Paul declares emphatically that “…that Rock was Christ.” (1 Cor. 10:4) This Rock speaks of that which is solid, unmovable, unchangeable, resilient and perfectly resistant to all changes of time and climate that may strike at its existence. But there is another aspect to this Rock, which is a Person, and it is Christ’s eternal commitment to mankind, and to the believer, of the certainty of His working, keeping and blessing, and complete enablement to fulfill every word of promise that He makes. Christ, according to His word, is that basis, foundation, eternal reason for which faith can not only seek to grasp Life Eternal but find the rest of soul in finding it. Man was created to know peace with God, and originally to receive the fulness of Christ in communion with Him, knowing almost limitlessly His joy, peace, and love. Only because of the Fall of man into sin did the window of his soul close, and spiritually he died, no longer able to receive freely and fully the revelation of Christ to his heart and soul. When Christ pronounced those terrible, and yet, wonderful words on the cross, “IT IS FINISHED,” a new, living, and eternal way was opened for man to know God, one that was based upon a covenant, a set of promises from God that gives the believer the basis and reason for which he can approach the eternal throne of God with boldness, howbeit, with great humility, thankfulness, and praise. God’s faithfulness to keep His covenant, and fulfill every aspect of it, is not only that life-line of the soul, but the immovable rock in the turbulent sea of life, which will never fail, faulter, or forsake. How then does one lay hold on God’s faithfulness, and seek to respond rightly to God’s covenants, so that man may truly live by Christ’s life and power?
In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians the Apostle speaks of God’s faithfulness, with respect to the believer’s CALLING to know Christ, specifically to know FELLOWSHIP with Him. What does he mean by this? The greatest calling by God to sinful man is that he should by the repentance and faith that Christ gives, enter into a relationship with Christ by the Spirit, and according to the truth, where one truly experiences the life and power of Christ. God’s faithfulness is revealed according to all that Christ declared was accomplished on Calvary, and also, in sending the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Every believer is now complete in Him, perfectly equipped and blessed in Christ.
Annie Marston, in her hymn, put it like this: “How wonderful! I never knew, That I might trust Thee so; That Thou wouldst be so much to me, In all the way I go, That ev’ry need Thou wouldst supply, And all my longings satisfy.” God has provided everything in Christ so that the believer can KNOW true communion, fellowship with Christ.
Paul also prayed for the Thessalonians concerning being sanctified wholly by the God of peace, their whole spirit and soul and body being preserved blameless. The basis for his prayer was the faithfulness God…”who calls you…and also will do it.”
Dear Father, Show forth Thy faithfulness. In Jesus’ name, Amen.