November 26th

24:Faithfulness

In the meantime...He began to say to His disciples first of all, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.' Luke 12:1

If I were to visit your workplace, what would your coworkers say about you? Or if I went to your neighborhood, what would people there say about you?

I ask these questions for a very important reason: Our reputation will come from whether or not we have been faithful. Faithfulness is the opposite of being hypocritical. It means being honest about who we are and whose we are.

We're here to be faithful to the Lord. That should be our reputation. We should be standing out in the community as ones who are living to be faithful unto the Lord. And this reputation that we gain for ourselves, hopefully for good, is so powerful that it will affect our children.

In fact, check out the story of when David kills Goliath. While King Saul and his whole army sit back saying, Oh, this is just too big for us to be able to do anything about it, David says, Who is this guy that defies the living God? Baloney. We can do something about this because our God is a faithful God! David goes out and doesn't even need Saul's armor. In fact, he tries it on. He can't even move. All he needs is a sling, some stones, and the faith that he's got in his Heavenly Father being faithful-he goes out and slays the giant.

That's the kind of reputation I think God wants us to have in town, one that boldly lives for Christ because we know that He's faithful. But here's what will happen when that reputation starts to grow. Do you know what Saul says after David kills Goliath? He looks at David, saying, Whose son is this?

There's quite a wonderful challenge for us as parents, don't you think? That we would have that same heart and desire the same reputation that people would be saying about our kids on the playground, at the mall, on the beach, Whose son is this? Whose daughter is this? Who's your daddy? That's what Saul wants to know.

And you and I together as dads, as moms, as parents, we desire that, don't we? We desire that the faithfulness of God would become the reputation of both our lives and our families' lives, even being passed on to our kids and to their kids. Whose Grandpa is this? Oh, yes. How great that would be? But it will only happen through faithfulness.

Guard your reputation from hypocrisy. Instead, look to the future and choose to be faithful.

Prayer Lord God,

Thank You that You are faithful! I know that I have no chance of being faithful myself unless You help me with Your faithfulness. I trust in You today to help me be faithful as You are faithful, so that Your name will become great wherever I go!

Amen