Fidelity to God: Our Highest Good
Written by Andrew T. Walker |
Friday, June 16, 2023
For practicing Christians, fidelity to God may mean recommitting ourselves to the practices that habituate us into deeper relationship. Even when we do not feel like it, we must read our Bibles and pray as a ritual reminder that the first thing about each of us is our ultimate end, not our temporal end. Contemplating God’s works in His Word is good for you. We must go to church, catechize ourselves and our families, and love each other.
One of the most important sentences in the entire Western canon comes from Augustine. It is a statement written in the indicative voice that many are doubtless familiar with, given its ubiquity. From The Confessions, Augustine states, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.” Though this sentence is an indicative statement of truth, it also assumes an imperative: we are meant to be in communion with God. For homo religiosus, knowing God is to be human at its fullest. We are to commune with God not because we seek our own supremacy, but because communing with God is what brings peaceful rectitude to the soul. Knowing God quenches our deepest desires to know the glorious and be known by the glorious.
The First Pillar
In the planning and execution for Fidelity Month, it became clear that dedication to God needed to be the first pillar of fidelity. This first pillar reminds us of an architectonic truth: whatever the goods of family, community, and nation represent, their intelligibility must be ordered and understood by what created them and, in turn, best illuminates them: God. The “ordo amoris,” or “order of loves” spoken of in the Christian tradition, insists on the inherent goods of family, community, and nation as ends to be pursued for their own sake. The love they are given, however, is proportionate to the love they are owed. But we owe God our highest affections because it is He who has made us. As we come to know God and conform ourselves to His divine plan, fullness of being comes into view. Scripture deems the knowledge of God as a resplendent good that colors every other experience of our humanity. As Psalm 36:9 states, “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.” Communion with God is what lights our path (Psalm 119:105). If we shall not walk in darkness, we must turn ourselves to the light (Isaiah 9:2; John 8:12).
Never more than now is the time ripe to rededicate ourselves to God. It’s what our culture needs most. With religion on the decline, it should come as no surprise that mental health appears more statistically volatile than ever before. Excise or trivialize the most important foundation of a person’s existence—their relationship to God—and it is to be expected that humanity’s sense of balance and purpose would be torn asunder.
Furthermore, in an age of cascading “identities” on endless offer, knowledge of God bequeaths a right and definitive knowledge of the self. Christian theology has a rich tradition of delineating the relationship between epistemology and anthropology, insisting on their essential unity. The two subjects ask: how do we know who we are? Theologians believe that philosophy on its own cannot adequately answer this question. In John Calvin’s Institutes, his famous opening lines sought to demarcate how knowledge of God spills over into an accurate knowledge of the self. For Calvin, they are inextricably bound in a helix-like structure. As Calvin says:
Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But, while they are joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern. In the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he “lives and moves” (Acts 17:28). For quite clearly, the mighty gifts with which we are endowed are hardly from ourselves; indeed, our very being shares in God’s own being. Then, by these benefits shed like dew from heaven upon us, we are led as by rivulets to the spring itself.
Here Calvin restates that architectonic truth: God is the font of all meaningful knowledge. Apart from him, we fumble around in the darkness. We cannot explain the obligations that beset us without God as the source of those obligations.
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God’s Will and Personal Decision Making
Every Christian I have ever met has an interest in and a desire for pleasing God by living in accordance with His will. When it comes to personal decision making—especially in seemingly large, life-affecting decisions (“Is this God’s will for my marriage partner?” “Is it God’s will for me to accept this job offer?”), we want God to give us His counsel, His advice, His direction. There is certainly nothing wrong with that. In especially hard decisions, we want to make an appointment with God and sit down across the desk from Him and explain to Him the situation and the decision we face and then to sit back and listen and have Him tell us exactly what decision to make. Or—maybe even more honestly—what we want is for God to decide for us so that we won’t have to.
The question is, does God direct us when we make personal decisions, and if so, how can I find that guidance? Or, can I know in advance God’s will for me in matters not explicitly spelled out in the Scriptures? While we cannot know God’s infallible will about anything except that which is revealed in Scripture, we are not to think that we have been left on our own with no assistance from God. The issue is not one of God’s willingness to assist but of the methodology by which God has stated He will give that assistance. What we find is that finding God’s will in personal decision making is a process, not an event. It is a process wherein we follow principles that God has given in His Word.
Here, then, are the means by which God has promised to give us the aid we so desperately desire when it comes to making specific decisions for our lives. While they are listed in no particular order (except for the first two, which are necessary and foundational), when woven together they are the means by which God ordinarily directs us in the way we should go.
1. The Bible: God’s revealed will and “our only rule of faith and life.”
God’s speaking in His Word is the only inerrant and infallible source of guidance and counsel concerning any decision. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to keep your righteous rules” (Ps. 119:105–6). We can know with certainty that any decision that involves violating what God has already said cannot please Him.
2. Prayer: Rooted in faith that God hears and cares.
He is a loving Father and is delighted to help in the decision-making process. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, it will be opened” (Matt. 7:7–8). “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5). -
The Blessing of a Higher Purpose in Our Pain
God may be accomplishing many things through our times of difficulty. He may be shifting our gaze from earth to heaven and causing us to have a greater longing for his presence. He may be refining our hearts and increasing our faith. He may be using our trials to bless and encourage others or to set an example they can follow. He may be making use of our suffering to show the world around us that our love for him is deep, real, and lasting and that we will love him in the darkness as much as we claim in the light.
It is amazing what struggles people will endure when they do so for a purpose they believe in. It is amazing what struggles people will deliberately bring upon themselves when they believe such struggles are the means to a desirable end. Athletes endure endless hours of training, excruciating times of preparation, and the pain of pushing themselves to the very edge of their endurance. And they do it all for the glory of a trophy, medal, or personal best. Students endure long hours, late nights, and difficult exams when they believe that their studies will eventually lead to a comfortable and fulfilling career. Women endure the struggles of pregnancy, the pains of labor, and the midnight feedings all for the joy of being a mother to a child.
But what of the trials we do not choose for ourselves, the trials that are thrust upon us without our desire and without our consent? What of the trials that do not lead to achieving a goal or attaining a sense of fulfillment? What of the trials that arise from without instead of within, from the mysteries of God’s providence rather than the longing of our hearts?
In such times, it is a tremendous blessing for Christians to consider why God has created us and why God has called us to live in this world. The chief end of man, the Catechism says sublimely, is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
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Thy Compassions They Fail Not
Like the Prodigal’s father, our Father felt great compassion on us, and with our True older Brother, welcomed us back into the home at His own expense (Luke 15:20). And that expense would cost our compassionate Father the ultimate expense, the life of His one and only Son in crucifixion (Romans 5:6-8) in order to make us alive together with Him in His resurrection (Ephesians 2:4-5) and to bring us back to the Father we had sinned against totally clean; wholly forgiven (1 Peter 3:18).
One of the questions I have often been asked as a pastor is why God allowed sin and misery into the world. If He is all-knowing and all-wise and even has the ability and power to do all He pleases, then why did it please Him to create a world that would nose-dive so fantastically into the turmoil and futility we experience because of sin? Couldn’t He have done it differently? Wasn’t there a better way?
These are essential questions that require careful answers. Thankfully, many careful answers have been given throughout church history, which we should borrow from when answering this question. For instance, many have said that God created the world, knowing full well what would happen in it because the story of sin and redemption manifested His glory more excellently than a world without a fall. Think about it this way, in a world without sin, human beings and all of creation could never get to know God in all of His fullness. While sin would not be present on a sterilized earth, there would be aspects of God that we could never understand, such as His mercy, justice, grace, forgiveness, and compassion. Without sin, there is no reason for God to be merciful. Without rebellion, there is no need for grace. This means, at least in part, that God allowed the world to fall into sin and misery so that He could showcase the fullness of His being to lost and lonely sinners, which brings Him unimaginable glory.
Understanding this, and while I am fully aware that there is more to say in matters of theodicy, we can be grateful to God for our sins. Because my sin put me in a position of need that only God could meet. My sin created a disease that only God could heal. And while we ought never to sin so that grace may abound, my sin introduced me to a savior who has offered me abounding grace that now causes me to hate my sin and pursue Him. Thus, even in the wretchedness of sin, even in our mortification of sin and hatred of sin, there are peculiar comforts and joys available to those who know the compassions of God.
And that is what I would like to talk about today. If you are new, we are in a little series on the attributes of God, talking about who God is, what He is like, and how we may know Him. Today, we look at His compassion towards sinners.
God Is Compassionate by Nature
God is compassionate by nature. He does not decide to become compassionate when a situation arises. He is compassionate as a fundamental quality of His being and person. For instance, Paul says that He is the “Father of compassion” and the “God of all comforts” (2 Corinthians 1:3). This requires that He doesn’t just possess these things as if they were commodities, but He is these things in all fullness and perfection. His compassions exist on a level of robust density and purity that they are beyond our ability to comprehend or even withstand without the aid of a mediator. For instance, when the God of perfect compassions passed in front of Moses, letting all His goodness be on display (Exodus 33:19; 34:6), he needed to be hidden in the face of a rock and covered with the Lord’s own hand in order to live and tell the tale. God is so unimaginably good that even His goodness threatens our unmediated flesh. He is merciful and gracious (Psalm 86:15), slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (Psalm 103:8), but His holiness and justice require that we repent and return to Him because He is compassionate (Psalm 116:5; 119:156; Joel 2:13)
God Is Compassionate to All People
While God’s most extraordinary and intimate affections are reserved for His children, the Lord is kind and compassionate to all people (Psalm 145:8-9). Think about it this way, everyone on earth has sinned and is in rebellion against God (Romans 3:23). And since the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), God would be perfectly just and righteous to eliminate the entire human race without so much as batting an eyelash. So, the fact that billions of people loathe God every single day, either in heinous acts of rebellion or in failing to thank Him for every stolen breath of His mercy, has allowed them to live on in morbid ingratitude.
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