Cheap “Commitment”

This semester in our men's Bible study we're studying the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23). Last night we looked at "faithfulness." Part of our homework each week is to come with a worldly cultural example of the assigned Fruit of the Spirit. My wife, Dani, supplied me with this example of what faithfulness looks like to the world…

Relationships are cheap today. Marriage means nothing. Consent is about nothing more than intercourse. And now the "worst kind of cheating" is watching a TV show without your "partner." (Don't be surprised at the overt promotion of homosexual sin in this context.)

Without the Holy Spirit, this is what faithfulness gets reduced to. When you remove our Creator from the center of our relationships with others, we no longer strive to exhibit His great faithfulness, but our own cheap "commitment."

The other part of our Bible study homework is to bring biblical instances of faithfulness. One of our grad students brought this one which helps reorient our minds to God's definition of faithfulness, which isn't cheap. Actually, it should strike holy fear in our hearts:

Know therefore that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments; but repays those who hate Him to their faces, to destroy them; He will not delay with him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face. Therefore, you shall keep the commandment and the statutes and the judgments which I am commanding you today, to do them. (Deuteronomy 7:9–11)

Alex McNeilly
Campus Director