The Powerful Promise God Is Faithful
There is a powerful promise God is faithful to Believers. Isaiah, Paul and Jesus talked about God’s faithful promise of mercy and love through a relationship with us. Whoever guards his mouth and tongue Keeps his soul from troubles. -Proverbs 21:23
Guards and keeps is actually a pun, it is the exact same Hebrew word used twice, שֹׁמֵ֣ר, which means to hedge about, guard, to protect or attend to. The first time this word is used in Scripture is the word “keeps” in Deuteronomy 7:9, “Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.”
In Deuteronomy 7:9, Moses called God the faithful God, a name Paul would repeat in 1 Corinthians 1:9, referring to the promise of how faithful God is to confirm the gospel of Jesus Christ with Holy Spirit gifts that will keep Believers blameless before God until the day Jesus returns. Paul also reminds us to be thankful of the promise of the grace of God through Christ Jesus, a promise that Jesus enriches Believers in everything, in all speech and in all knowledge.
When Paul wrote God is faithful, Paul was referring to Isaiah 49:7, a prophecy about Jesus, the first time Isaiah prophesied that Jesus will be hated by the nations, which means Jesus will be hated by the gentiles, a prophecy that specifically points to the time just before Jesus returns to earth with all His Saints to start His 1000 year reign on earth, the time of the Great Tribulation, the time just before every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus is Lord when He returns to earth to rule as King of kings and Lord of lords.
Paul also wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:9 about the promise of Believers being called into the fellowship of God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. This promise of fellowship is defined by Jesus in John 15:4, where Jesus says as long as a Believer remains faithful to Him and is not severed from the faith, there is a promise the Believer will continue to bear fruit.
This promise of fellowship with Jesus is further explained by Paul in Colossians 1:23, if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister. Paul ties it all together in Ephesians 3:17, where he explains what it means to be in the faith.
Paul wrote about the promise of the mystery in Ephesians 3:14-21, the promise of how God strengthens Believers through Christ Jesus, by the grace of God through His Spirit in the inner man so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith while we are rooted and grounded in love. The love Paul means here is agapē love, mentioned by Jesus when He was talking about some of the things that will happen on earth just before the Great Tribulation, in Matthew 24:12, where Jesus said, “And because lawlessness will abound, the love [agapē love] of many will grow cold.”
Lawlessness is many things. Lawlessness is mob rule, hatred, calling good evil and evil good, people defining God’s love as sensual, only giving love one definition, not having the Holy Spirit, amongst other definitions, as mentioned in Jude 1:16-19, “These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit.”
This agapē love Paul wrote about in Ephesians 3:14-21, is necessary for us to be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. As Jude wrote in Jude 1:1-2, To those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ: Mercy, peace, and love [agapē love] be multiplied to you. And again in Jude 1:21, keep yourselves in the love [agapē love] of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
Whoever guards his mouth and tongue Keeps his soul from troubles. -Proverbs 21:23
