Being Faithful to God
by Joe R. Price
October 11, 2009

Why are many Christians being lost to false doctrine? Why are many Christians leaving their first love in order to love this world and its pleasures?

There are many Biblical answers to these questions. For example, a lack of knowledge of God’s word causes spiritual collapse (Hosea 4:6). Some have never been grounded in the faith (Col. 2:6-7). Again, some yield to the temptations of the flesh and are drown in a sea of harmful lusts (1 Tim. 6:9). Others have been taught that doctrine is not all that important; especially when compared to qualities like love. This is a false comparison being offered up to comfort people in spite of their sinful error. Jesus said, “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you”, and “if you love Me, keep My commandments (Jn. 15:12; 14:15). Love itself is doctrine which we must obey.

Christians must remain faithful in every area of our lives. Having been justified by faith, it is also by faith that we have access “into this grace in which we stand” (Rom. 5:1-2). Standing in God’s grace means that we purposely choose that sin will no longer rule over us (read Rom. 6:1-2, 6-18). The grace in which we stand teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lust and to live “soberly, righteously and godly in the present age” (Titus 2:11-12).

Being unfaithful to God forfeits the grace of God. The word of God says Christians can fall short of God’s grace: “looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled” (Heb. 12:15). The Bible says Christians can fall from grace: “You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace” (Gal. 5:4).

Christians can be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin and develop “an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God” (Heb. 3:12-13). Note the conditional nature of partaking of Christ in the next verse: “For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end” (Heb. 3:14). What follows is an explanation of being faithful to God to “hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end” (Heb. 3:14).
Being faithful to God means obeying the word of God. God swore in His wrath to Israel (“those who did not obey” Him) that they would not enter His rest (the land of Canaan, Heb. 3:17-18). Now, look closely at Hebrews 3:19: “So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief”. Israel’s disobedience is equated to unbelief. It is not surprising that Jesus said, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do the things which I say” (Lk. 6:46). The people of God must do what God says or else they do not actually believe what God says.
Christians who do not obey God now cannot expect to be blessed with an eternal home later. Israel dying in the wilderness should teach us that lesson and forever banish to the wilderness the false doctrine of “once saved always saved”.

Some Christians live like they believe the false doctrine of once saved always saved. Sin is not a possibility in their mind. They have good intentions, so therefore, nothing is amiss. (How foolish and false such a view is, Prov. 16:25). These Christians disobey God as if it were their right to do so. And, how dare you point it out to them! The truth is, unless we obey God we are not being faithful to Him.

We must hear God’s word with faith in order to be faithful to God. “Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it” (Heb. 4:1-2). Hearing God’s word but not obeying it is of no profit. When we hear God’s word (spoken to us by His Son through His apostles – the New Testament, Heb. 1:2; Lk. 10:16) we must believe it enough to obey it. Otherwise, we have a profitless and dead faith (cf. Jas. 2:14-17).

Being faithful to God solves the problem of falling away. Being faithful to God depends on being grounded in the faith (Col. 2:6-7). We must know the word of God in order to obey God (Eph. 3:3-5; 5:17; 2 Tim. 2:15). Being faithful to God means we will cast off the works of darkness and “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provisions for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts” (Rom. 13:12-14). Being faithful to God means we will “hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me, in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 1:13).

Being faithful to God brings an eternal reward (2 Tim. 4:7-8). Being unfaithful to Him brings eternal death (Rev. 20:8). Faithless Israel teaches Christians to be faithful: “Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience” (Heb. 4:11).

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