Our great God is to be praised for He is completely and perfectly faithful! O, how His faithfulness brings joy to our hearts and comfort to our souls. God’s faithfulness has been abundantly clear as He has and always will keep His promises. Contrary to our experience of our own and other men’s failures, inconsistencies, time and again being unfaithful, God cannot but be faithful. It is impossible for God to be anything else than wholly and purely faithful. How awesome that is!

David proclaimed that God’s faithfulness reaches to the clouds (Psalm 36:5). Further, he didn’t hide God’s righteousness in his heart, but declared God’s faithfulness and salvation (Psalm 40:10). He praised God on the lute for His faithfulness (Psalm 71:22). Isaiah proclaimed, “O Lord, You are my God. I will exalt You, I will praise Your name, For You have done wonderful things; Your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.” (Isaiah 25:1) “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23)
From our hearts and lips, we sing that great hymn, “Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father. There is no shadow of turning with thee. Thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not. As thou hast been thou forever wilt be.”

As God is faithful, He calls His children to be faithful and works in us to bear this wonderful fruit. How great it is to know and see how God gives and brings things about in us that we could never do on our own! We see good testimony of fruit of faithfulness in the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25. As we study this parable, we know that the master is Christ, who is the supreme and absolute owner and has authority over all things. Further, He is head of His church. We Christians are His servants, called to be prepared and diligent in work and service to Him. Diligence is an essential component of our faithful lives and labors. Christians aren’t to be idle, but are to be faithful with what He gives us and calls us to do. Our lives should be viewed as being in service to and on the errand of the King.

Therefore, when He gives us instruction in His Word, we seek to be faithful to obey right away and consistently over time. Laziness should be absent in our labors. Our own agenda needs to be kept out of the way. Our devotion to Him must shine through in action. We must seek to do what He tells us to do, not following our own desires for what we think is best, or be driven by fear or other ill motives. For our desire is that our Master will find us to be “good and faithful servants”. Notice in verse 21 that the first reward for faithfulness is God’s praise. “Well done”, He will say. Know that the Lord uses our works to reveal and vindicate His character as we are transformed by His grace. (Matthew 12:33-34, Philippians 1:6) Notice also the second reward – the welcome Christ gives His faithful servants to enter His joy. Such wonderful rewards from our Master!