Hallelujah! Glory to God! The Lord God Almighty has enabled you and I [as His dear children] to bask under His gracefulness for another week, so that we could directly have the benefit of His faithfulness in our lives. In fact, the Lord has blessed our life more than we asked for or imagined during the past week. Ever since the Lord God made mankind in His image and likeness, we have been enjoying God’s faithfulness in our lives despite our disobedience against His commands. He is still gracious and compassionate and loving toward us. Prophet Jeremiah, who is known as the mourning/weeping prophet, exclaimed that Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness (Lamentations 3:22-23). There are numerous examples recorded in the Scripture about God’s faithfulness to His people. A few names of the righteous people who experienced God’s faithfulness in their lives to be noted in here from the Scripture for our reference are Abel, Noah, Job, Abraham, Moses, Daniel, Mary and Joseph, Zechariah and Elizabeth, John the Baptist, the apostles of Christ including Paul, and so on. All these righteous people and many more in the Scripture experienced God’s faithfulness in their lives that enabled them to lead a righteous lifestyle on earth. The Christian hymn ‘Great is Thy Faithfulness …’ which was written in 1923 by Thomas Obadiah Chisholm (1866-1960), a Kentucky born minister of the Gospel and songwriter, narrates God’s faithfulness to His people in and through all the seasons of their life. We, as God’s children, should also be able to experience His presence, protection, provision, and His faithfulness in our lives as we sing the same hymn: Great is Thy Faithfulness, O God, my Father …

Great is thy faithfulness, Great is thy faithfulness,

Morning by morning new mercies I see.

All I have needed thy hand hast provided;

Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!

Moses who experienced God’s faithfulness in his own life and in the life of the people whom the Lord God delivered under his leadership exhorted the Israelites, he stated for our spiritual advantage, saying Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments (Deuteronomy 7:9).

• • The Lord God Almighty who is a self-existing Being is faithful
  • The Lord God who is perfectly complete [fulness] in Himself is faithful
  • The Lord God who is Sovereign remains faithful for ever and ever
  • The Lord God who is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent is faithful
  • The Lord God who is loving and compassionate is faithful
  • The Lord God who created the universe and everything in it is faithful
  • The Lord God formed you from the dust of the ground is faithful
  • The Lord God who breathed into your nostrils the breath of life is faithful
  • The Lord God who created your entire being is faithful
  • The Lord God who gave you life is faithful
  • The Lord God who offered you life everlasting is faithful
  • The Lord God who sustains you is faithful
  • The Lord God who forgave your sins is faithful
  • The Lord God who redeemed you is faithful
  • The Lord God who called you for His purpose is faithful
  • The Lord God who cherishes you and cares for you is faithful
  • The Lord God who protects your life from harm and danger is faithful
  • The Lord God who provides for your everyday needs is faithful
  • The Lord God who promised you is faithful
  • The Lord God who abounds in love and mercy is faithful
  • The Lord who does not change [like shifting shadows] is faithful
  • The Lord God who is the Lord of lords is faithful
  • The Lord God who is the King of kings is faithful
  • The Lord God is faithful in His words
  • The Lord God is faithful in His deeds
  • The Lord God is faithful in His promises

The Lord God has blessed us with a purposeful Scripture passage for the SftW meditation this week, which is taken from Colossians 2:6-10 [mentioned above]. We live in a society where most people very often change their relationships, houses, jobs, places, and so on. There is very limited firmness in their decisions and approaches. Similar things are happening even in the Christian churches. People move from place to place and church to church searching for comfort, counsel, and guidance. They are never content with what they have or thrilled with who they are. They are neither stable in their evaluations nor satisfied with their decisions, rather they keep moving from one place to another, one house to another, one job to another, one relationship to another, one idea to another, one church to another, and so on. The believers in Colossae were also in a similar unstable condition. They were devout believers when they accepted the gospel of Christ and decided to follow Jesus. However, as time passed, they grow cold spiritually and began to satisfy their spiritual quest with wrong ideas and actions and at wrong places. The believers in Colossae forgot the need of being rooted in Christ or continuing to live in Christ in order to meet their spiritual need in Christ Jesus. They often chose the wrong path instead of choosing the right path in order to satisfy their spiritual hunger and thirst. With their wrong perspectives and approaches, they were moving away from Christ, the anchor of their faith, instead of drawing closer to Him to satisfy their spiritual needs. They utterly failed to achieve spiritual maturity in and through Christ Jesus. In such a context, Apostle Paul, being their spiritual leader, urged the believers in Colossae to follow Christ in the same way they followed Him when they first accepted Him as the Lord and Savior of their lives (Colossians 1:4-6a), as it is mentioned: just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness (Colossians 2:6-7).

Paul stated about the faith of the Colossians that We have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people—the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you…the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace (Colossians 1:4-6). From this we can understand that The church at Colossae was a growing and fruit bearing church. Similarly, everyone who follows Jesus Christ faithfully is rooted and built up in the foundation of Christ Jesus and will bear fruit for the Kingdom of God. Jesus said, Remain/abide in me, as I also remain/abide in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine (John 15:4). As we continue to live in Jesus, Jesus also will continue to live in us. Everyone who claims that they have fellowship with Christ ought to remain in Him to bear fruit for the Kingdom of God, just as the church at Colossae was also bearing fruit and growing in the Lord in the early stage.

Let us once more read the Scripture passage we have chosen for our meditation to analyze it and study for our spiritual empowerment (Colossians 2:6-10).

• • Be faithful to Christ Jesus just like the way you were faithful to Him when you first received Him as the Lord and Savior of your life (2:6a)
  • Continue to live your lives in Him (2:6b)
  • Be rooted in Christ Jesus (2:7a)
  • Be built up in Christ Jesus (2:7b)
  • Be strengthened in the faith in the way you were taught (2:7c)
  • Be always overflowing with thankfulness for everything Christ did in your life (2:7d)
  • Be alert and watchful for your life in Christ Jesus (2:8a)
  • Do not let anyone take you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy that depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ (2:8b)
  • Know that in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form (2:9)
  • Know that in Christ you have been brought to fullness (2:9a)
  • He is the head over every power and authority (2:9b)

Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, as Apostle Paul urged the believers in Colossae, let us also be faithful to Jesus and continue to live in Him, so that we will be able to bear fruit for the Kingdom of God. May the Lord God Almighty bless us all! Amen!