English (United States) 
"Faithful to Christ" from the Spring 2018 Vision Newsletter
What does it mean to be faithful to Christ? First, we must recognize and understand – God is faithful to us!
How great is the faithfulness of our God? It’s difficult to even comprehend God’s faithfulness to us because He is perfect and He is love. Why would He stay faithful to us, people who are imperfect and oft times have a hard time showing love? But, even when we are faithless, He is faithful. He is interested in every soul – those who come near to Him and those who walk away.
Everything shows His faithfulness. We can look at the lyrics of “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” Even the seasons, as the song says, show His faithfulness. The more we discover and understand how God is faithful to us, the closer we move towards our faithfulness to Him. This is not measured by how much we offer or how often we are in church, but rather by how much we are learning, growing, and transforming into the image of Christ.
So, let’s ask ourselves: Am I faithful to God? Chief Apostle Schneider brought out four ways that we can demonstrate our faithfulness to God.
Follow Christ’s example
In order to follow His example and conform to His image, we have to know about Him. This requires a culture of learning. The Lord wants to open new understandings of who He is and what He wants for us.
One example that Jesus set for us was how to pray. He teaches us about prayer in the Lord’s Prayer and shows us examples through the many times He spent alone in prayer. Do our prayers parallel Jesus’ prayers? Wouldn’t it be nice if at the beginning of our prayers, we started with expressing to God the ways that He is faithful to us, and then brought our intercessions and petitions?
Be constant in love
We want to both always dwell in His love and be unending in our love towards Him. Of course, this means that even in times of suffering, we are constant in our love. Christians will have suffering; Christ even foretold this in John 16:33.
We can read in 1 Corinthians 10:13 (NIV): No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
God is always there to provide the way of escape or offer courage and strength to get through it. He is faithful, and that’s why we remain constant in love.
His faithfulness also inspires us to have love towards each other. God wants us to share His love with other people, and so it is our sacred duty to do this. Because we have His Spirit in us, we have the love of Christ in us and we can love as He did, everlasting and directed towards all people (ref. Romans 5:5).
Be willing to serve
What is our motivation to serve? Doing something because we have to is not a willingness to serve. Christ was willing to serve. Are you willing to just go serve in some way or give of your time, gifts, or resources? Jesus calls us to be a witness of Him and that means our lifestyle is different. We have to keep moving or evolving our lives into what Jesus would want, and be willing to serve in all types of situations.
We all have been given gifts by God to do what He wants us to do. These gifts are given to us in order to serve one another. So let’s always be asking ourselves: Am I doing what Jesus has asked me to do?
And maybe we already do serve when we have the opportunity, but we don’t experience much success. Mother Teresa once said, “God has not called me to be successful. He has called me to be faithful.”
Let us not be discouraged if we don’t see positive results from our serving. We don’t know God’s plans; what we know is that we are called to do what He asks us to do.
Keep your promises
In the confirmation vow, we promise to renounce the devil. God doesn’t expect us to live perfect lives, but He does want us to renounce sin, to push it away and resist when something is wrong, to surrender the part of ourselves that rebels against God. This is all part of keeping our promises.
With the marriage blessing and vow, couples promise to glorify God through their marriage and let their relationship with Christ be a guide for their relationship with each other. In the vow made during the baptism blessing, parents promise to raise their children under the teachings of the gospel and to have a relationship with Christ. The Church is not responsible for us keeping these promises. We are responsible, so let’s be faithful to God in this way and remain true to our promises.
Our faithfulness to God demonstrates who we are as Christians. Are we part-time Christians, where we only show love sometimes, or we only serve in situations that are convenient, or we only keep our promises if it suits us? Let our lives be a reflection that we are God’s children and let us strive to always be faithful to Him.