Christlikeness of Character- Part 2" Faithfulness and A Life of Worship"

Good Evening to All!

Tonight I am going to continue my series on "Christlikeness of Character". Last night we covered "Consecration" and "True Servanthood". Tonight we will start with the subtopic of
Faithfulness and A Life of Worship. I have tried two different methods of adding scripture. For Faithfulness, I linked the scriptures from Bible Gateway, whereas the scriptures are actually typed in "A Life of Worship'. I would really like your opinions which do you like better?

3. "Faithfulness" (Luke 16:10). Faithful men and women are desperately needed for leadership in the church today. Paul notes this Christlike quality (a) in describing Timothy as a beloved son, faithful in the Lord (1 Corinthians 4:17) and (b) in describing the Lord Himself, whose faithful nature is the fountainhead we may draw from in order to nurture faithfulness in our own lives (1 Thessalonians 5:24). Faithfulness is described as (1) a prerequisite to promotion (Matthew 25:23); (2) a reliability in right management of resources
(Luke 16:11); and (3) the goal of our accountability as servants of Christ (1 Corinthians 4:2).

Have you ever thought about that word? How truly important it is even in our everyday life? We are faithful to our spouses, boyfriends or girlfriends or relationships end. Our children have to be faithful to their schools and show up or get in trouble. We have to be faithful to our jobs in many ways; in attendance (or we get fired) to our boss (another word would be loyal). We have to be faithful in doing our job right and consistently, and we have to be faithful to the business and not go telling competitors our business.

We also have to be faithful to ourselves. Don't try to be someone we're not. God made us and when we are being disloyal or unfaithful to ourself by pretending to be something we're not, God sees it and I'm sure it makes Him unhappy. By trying to morph into someone else, we are essentially telling God we don't like who we are and therefore He didn't do a good enough job on us. Yes, I know you may think that's reaching a bit, but think about it. Just like when people get plastic surgery. An eye lift here, a nose job there other places enlarged. We are changing what God created, therefore we are telling Him we don't like the job He did. That is being unfaithful to Him and to ourselves.

The same goes for our personality. The only one we should change for would be God and that would only be for the better. Remain faithful to yourself and to God. Read His Word and Talk to Him so you can develop a relationship with Him. The more you do this, the closer you will become to Him and the more faithful you will be toward Him.


Just an interesting fact. I looked up the word "faithfulness" in the Bible on my computer and it said that specific word was used only in the Old Testament and it was only in nineteen verses. I then looked up the word "faithful" and it was used both in the Old and New Testaments in a total of One Hundred Five verses. They are pretty evenly matched with 54 being in the Old Testament and 51 being in the New.

4. "A Life of Worship"-- A Christlike life is a worshiping life. Jesus lived out the practice of faithful attendance in worship, (Luke 4:16) And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. He was familiar with God's Word in worship ¹⁷And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,, sang psalms of praise and worship (Mark 14: 26) And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives. He walked with the Father in constant worship and perfect relationship (John 8:29) And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him. The matching response for a disciple of the Savior is to pursue worship in a constant quest to live with a sense of the presence of a holy God. do not let your own sense of unworthiness or imperfection block your quest. The woman who washed Jesus' feet with her tears was an acknowledged sinner, but Jesus' words to her were, (Luke 7:48) "Your sins are forgiven"

Worship brings all before Him, seeks to hide nothing, does not precede maturity in purity; it is the pathway to it. If you wrestle with weakness or sin in your life, pursue God in worship: He will cleanse and deliver. Draw near to His heart in worship, "in spirit" (through the power of the Holy Spirit) and "in truth" (with total transparency and openness of heart before Him, welcoming the purifying light of His Word).

Worshiping God to me is like a good cleansing. Kind of like when a person lets things well up inside of them and then finally everything comes to a head and you just sit and cry and cry and cry. I have been to the point where I couldn't stop crying once I got started. Once I got "cried out", I felt relieved, or like every muscle in my body had been tensed up for weeks or months, and then all of a sudden got relaxed. It's a wonderful feeling.

That's the way I feel when I worship like every weight has been lifted, every muscle has been loosened up. I feel relieved.

I will continue this series Thursday with "Humility", "Compassion" and "Fullness of Joy".

Please be sure and leave me your comments and opinions about the scriptures.