Full of Faithfulness

“So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.” John 1:14

I love playing the piano. I have never had a formal piano lesson. Everything I know I learned from my friend who was a youth pastor at the time. We were talking about music and he said, “I can teach you in five minutes how to play the piano.” Needless to say, I leaned in to listen. For the next five minutes (okay, maybe ten) he scratched out illustrations on a scrap of paper while teaching me everything I needed to know about chords and key signature. I walked away from there, believing I could play the piano. “Could it be that simple?” I wondered. The answer was yes, and no. 

Although the principles I learned in that shortest-piano-lesson-ever did become the foundation for all my piano playing, I had to do the one thing that makes or breaks a pianist in the early stages: practice. I had to commit to putting into practice what I had learned that day. I won’t lie. It took years! And I am continually learning and using the same principles 40 years later.

Jesus was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. Think about faithfulness for a minute. What is the difference between faith and faithfulness? Faith is our response to God, while faithfulness is an attribute of God. Faith is an event. An act of faith happens when we respond to the truth about God. Faithfulness, on the other hand, is consistency and persistence. 

Faith is like those first 5 minutes or so of my “piano lesson.” In that short span of time, I jumped on board with a concept that I believed would really work. I had faith that I could play the piano. Faithfulness happened when I sat down at the piano day after day, month after month, and put into practice what I had learned. Faithfulness was being consistent and persistent. 

Jesus was faithful. He was consistent in His message and persistent in His mission. The Bible says he was full of faithfulness. As human beings, we have to learn to be faithful. We have to practice faith until it becomes faithfulness. Jesus was full of faithfulness when He arrived on the planet. He is the same yesterday and forever (Heb.13:8). 

Even before the world was created and man fell into sin, Jesus was faithful. The book of Revelation describes Jesus as the “Lamb who was slaughtered before the world was made.” That means that before we ever needed saving, Jesus was our Savior. Before a plan for redemption was required, Jesus was our Redeemer. Jesus was full of faithfulness and He will continue to be faithful throughout eternity.