Great is Thy faithfulness

B19 C13 CB19 D19 E19 F218 K13 LSM5 P15 R11 T19
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“Great is Thy faithfulness,” O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.
 
“Great is Thy faithfulness!” “Great is Thy faithfulness!”
  Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—
    “Great is Thy faithfulness,” Lord, unto me!
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Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above,
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.
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Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!
1406
Twearnier

As I look back over the year, I can truly God has been faithful. It can be so easy to look at the things around me that I don't have and complain. But, when I really take time to think, I see how His hand has been at work....thank You, Lord for taking care of me. :)


Christianah Benjamin

Brooklyn, NY, United States

Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father!

All that I have needed Thy hand hath provided.

Thank You, Everlasting Father.


Lilian

Nairobi, Kenya

I love this song. Indeed great is Thy faithfulness, mercy and love.


Debbie Taguiam

Philippines

Truly God's faithfulness is in us this year 2012. I pray that we also will be faithful to God this coming year 2013. To God be the glory!


Vanessa Pamaran

Manila, Philippines

Minutes after my dad died in the emergency room, I was just sitting in the corner. I was amazed to hear a very familiar song which was often sung by my dad and me. The hospital usually don't play hymnal songs and so I was a bit amazed. That moment I just thought that God was at my side comforting me and I knew that very moment that my dad is going to be in heaven pretty soon.


Nicole Sims

Union, SC, United States

I love this song....It was sung at my wedding, one beautiful hymn.


Enaifoghe Victor

Abuja, Fct, Nigeria

This is one of my best songs ever. Thank You Lord for Your Faithfulness even when am faithless, You remained Faithful.


Sherrell

God is Faithful in everything! I have had this song in my heart and singing in my mind for weeks. I had to look up the words this morning, didn't want to miss one of them.


Chidinma Abiakalam

Anthony Village, Lagos, Nigeria

I lost my dad about 7 weeks ago. I have had deep feelings of sadness, anger and loneliness. I felt the Lord drop this song into my spirit whenever I feel low. It reassures me that God is faithful and since He promised that He would never leave me nor forsake me, I can rest trusting that everything will be fine. God, You are faithful!!!


Amy

United States

God has been so faithful to me! I thought I would not be able to have children because my husband and I could not conceive for years. We and many others prayed for a long time, and God gave us triplets, two boys and a girl! They were born at almost 31 weeks and were in the 3 pound range, but you would never know it today. They are four years old and very healthy. Great is His faithfulness!

Although we are unfaithful, God is faithful. Lamentations 3:23b says, "Great is Your faithfulness." The chorus of a well-known hymn on God's faithfulness (Hymns, #19) says, "'Great is Thy faithfulness!' 'Great is Thy faithfulness!' / Morning by morning new mercies I see; / All I have needed Thy hand has provided—/ 'Great is Thy faithfulness,' Lord, unto me!" We may understand what the Bible says and what this hymn says about God's faithfulness either in a natural way or in a spiritual way. When you sing this hymn, how do you understand the word faithfulness? If you understand God's faithfulness in a natural way, you may think that He is faithful primarily in the matter of material provisions or physical blessings. When some say that God is faithful, they mean that He is faithful to take care of their material needs. However, in 1 Corinthians 1:9 Paul says, "God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." God is faithful in this matter, but He may not be faithful to provide you a large house or a well-paying job. I would not deny the fact that God is faithful in caring for our welfare. My point is that God's faithfulness is not according to our natural understanding.

Consider the sufferings of the apostle Paul. He was called, commissioned, burdened, and sent by God, but wherever he went he had troubles. For example, as soon as he began to preach Christ, he began to suffer persecution. He even had to escape from Damascus by being lowered down the wall in a basket. Does this mean that God was not faithful to Paul? No, it means that God's faithfulness is not according to our natural understanding.

When we believed in the Lord Jesus, we might have expected to have peace and blessing. But instead we might have had many troubles and might have lost our security, our health, or our possessions. When some Christians experience such things, they may question God's faithfulness and ask why He did not prevent hardships from happening to them.

We need to realize that in allowing us to have troubles, God is faithful in His purpose to turn us from idols and bring us back to Himself. Our peace, safety, health, and possessions may become idols to us, and God is faithful to take these things away so that we may drink of Him as the fountain of living waters. If our house or our possessions become idols to us, we drink of them and not of God. God's faithfulness is a matter of dealing with these idols and causing us to drink of Him.

God is faithful in leading us into His economy, and His economy is for us to drink Christ, to eat Christ, to enjoy Christ, to absorb Christ, and to assimilate Christ that God may have His increase with us to fulfill His economy. This is God's faithfulness.

Instead of drinking of God as the fountain of living waters, Israel drank of their idols. Therefore, God used the Babylonians to deal with these idols and also to destroy Jerusalem and even the temple, which had become an idol to them. We need to see that we are not better than Israel. Anything can become an idol to us. But God is faithful in fulfilling His economy. In His faithfulness He deals with our idols that we may drink of Him. We all need to drink of God as the fountain of living waters, receiving Christ into us and assimilating Him, so that He may increase for the fulfillment of God's economy to have His expression through His counterpart.

Whereas God is faithful, we are neither faithful nor chaste but go to many other husbands. After failing God, we may receive some mercy and grace and therefore repent and weep, saying, "How pitiful I am! For a long time I have not loved the Lord very much, and I have not attended the meetings." While we are repenting and weeping, God is rejoicing. However, if we repent and weep too much, even our repentance may become an idol. We may testify in a meeting, saying that we have thoroughly repented to God. But this may be a matter of self-boasting and be a self-made idol. Therefore, after repenting, we should begin to drink of the living waters, praising God, giving thanks to Him for everything, and enjoying Him. This is what God wants. God is not interested in anything other than our enjoyment of Christ.

Jeremiah's speaking in Lamentations 3:22-26 is another pattern of prophesying: "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." Jeremiah told us that it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. This is not foretelling but blessing, well-speaking. He told us that the mercies, the compassions, of the Lord are new every morning. We need to learn to prophesy in this way. Jeremiah told the Lord, "Great is thy faithfulness." There is a well-known hymn based upon this verse (Hymns, #19). Jeremiah also said that the Lord was his portion. It is marvelous that there was a prophet in the Old Testament who knew that the Lord was his portion. When we tell others that the Lord is our portion, we are speaking the Lord to them.

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