The Knowledge of the Holy: The Faithfulness of God
[Editor’s Note: This is a 23-Day Series exploring different aspects of God’s nature and personality, using Tozer’s “The Knowledge of the Holy” as a discussion starter. You can read the introduction of the series here.]
Today’s reading was another one of those chapters where it seems like all of God’s attributes came crashing in together. Tozer seems to have spent more of the chapter describing how God’s attributes are all one in His being than he did actually describing God’s faithfulness! But it was warranted and served as a good reminder that God is One, not three or even many parts. He is single in everything He does and understanding that will help us know Him much better than we currently do.
In discussing God’s faithfulness, Tozer reminds us that God is immutable (He doesn’t change). And because God doesn’t change, He will be faithful. If there were ever a time that God wasn’t faithful, He would at that very moment have changed. And this gets at the heart of how God is so incredibly different than we are. We change and therefore we can be faithful or unfaithful, depending on how we feel. But God doesn’t change and so He always remains faithful.
I loved when Tozer identifies ways in which we perceive God wrongly. Today he highlighted the idea we have where God is torn between two different aspects of His character. But God is one and his attributes, like say love and justice, are never at odds within Him. There is no Father/Son arm-wrestling match in Heaven to decide whether justice or mercy will be shown to people on Earth. In God’s justice, He shows mercy. And in God’s mercy, He shows justice.
Tozer then moves to God’s faithfulness. The Bible is full of descriptions of His faithful dealings with His people, from Genesis to Revelation. But Tozer highlights a profound truth: God’s faithfulness is the grounds for the blessings we hope to inherit one day. Our confidence that we will receive them rests on our ability to trust God’s faithfulness to keep His word. This ability to trust God’s faithfulness, even through hard times, has a biblical name: faith.
We become people of faith by seeing God’s faithfulness played out before us over and over again. We believe something God says and wait for it to come to pass. Then when we see it come to pass, we have an easier time believing it will come to pass again. There are times when God will give a supernatural measure of faith to help us to believe for things we have never seen before, but most faith grows by watching God do what He says. This is how we gain trust with our parents and others in the natural and it works in a similar way with God.
Understanding God’s faithfulness and becoming a person of faith is crucial to our lives. Only people who know and understand that God is with them and will not abandon them can face the future with courage. Many face life not knowing whether they will succeed or whether death and gloom awaits around every corner. But if you’ve found Jesus faithful, you can even look death square in the face with assurance of victory. You know Your God will not abandon you.
My encouragement for all of us today is to begin to take God at His word. In our lives, you and I have places where we feel like there has been some kind of disappointment with God. That doesn’t mean God has failed, but it’s entirely possible we had incorrect expectations. My encouragement for you today is to find the places where your faith in God has grown weak because You haven’t seen God’s faithfulness and begin to ask Jesus to renew faith in your heart. He will prove Himself faithful. He can do no other.
That’s my takeaway today. What’s yours? Leave a comment so we can all grow together!
That’s my takeaway today. What’s yours? Leave a comment so we can all grow together!
Day 1: Why We Must Think Rightly About God
Day 3: A Divine Attribute: Something True About God
Day 5: The Self Existence of God
Day 6: The Self Sufficiency of God
Day 9: The Immutability of God
Day 10: The Divine Omniscience
Day 12: The Omnipotence of God
Day 13: The Divine Transcendence
Day 15: The Faithfulness of God
Day 16: The Goodness of God
Day 17: The Justice of God
Day 18: The Mercy of God
Day 19: The Grace of God
Day 20: The Love of God
Day 21: The Holiness of God
Day 22: The Sovereignty of God
Day 23: The Open Secret
12 responses to “The Knowledge of the Holy: The Faithfulness of God”
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Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 
I am so glad that God is faithful even when we are not.
Right?!
So, not to quote Bible at you, but I so love these verses from Second Timothy 2:
“If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—
for he cannot deny himself.”