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.
 I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
    therefore I will wait for him.”

Lamentations 3:22-24

Today I’m going to compound the huge risk I took at men’s Bible study (Tuesday morning) by potentially embarrassing myself over the whole world-wide web! But there is a sense of immediacy here that I don’t want to miss and I believe it is worth putting myself out there.

You will especially understand my concerns when you hear the opening chords to the song – my guitar work is really poor! I am someone who generally plays a pretty good six-string, but this week my fingers just can’t find their way to playing a clear F-Major!

Faithful & True:

But I digress. The point of sharing the song is Tuesday morning’s men’s group discussion at HMPC. We talked about “Faithfulness,” and I used Steven Curtis Chapman’s classic My Redeemer is Faithful and True to round off our time together. Then I came home, sat on the stairs, and decided to record it for this space.

Faith is not an easy idea to define. But the guys had little trouble when it came to talking about what “faithfulness” means to them. They referenced reliability and trust and loyalty and devotion and dependability; they talked about being steadfast and true and – I like this one – unfaltering. Someone even mentioned the largely obsolete word “constancy.”

And they talked about how secure they are in knowing – not just feeling but actually knowing – the assurance of God’s love and grace. “Even when I walk through the valley of the shadow I am not afraid, because you are with me, your rod and staff comfort me….” (Psalm 23).

And this assurance goes well beyond the surface level of “show me, then I will believe”. The men also talked about the inspirational faith of people who may not ever see the results of what they put their trust in. In this world we typically demand results right now – if not sooner!

Action Words!

Faithfulness is keeping our promises, it is following through on our commitments, it is being trustworthy, it is honoring the covenants we have made; faithfulness is coming to church. Faithfulness is very many things, but most of all it is about honoring God in the way that we live.

Notice all those verbs – the action words: keeping promises; following through on commitments; being trustworthy; honoring covenants; coming to church. Faithfulness is action-oriented.

This song may be a little rough in terms of production quality (and chord clarity) but the words have meant so much to me and to Rebekah ever since we first heard it from Steven Curtis Chapman himself, when he stood at the front of Trinity Presbyterian Church and offered it as the Sunday morning anthem.

So take a listen (and please excuse the guitar playing!). Then let’s consider how we all might more faithfully honor God in the commitments we have made. – DEREK