“For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.” Hebrews 6:10

There’s a lot we take for granted in our lives because these things happen each day. There’s one thing that has happened every day in each of our lives. The sun has come up every day! Each morning, even if it was cloudy, the sun still rose, and daytime still happened. The sun faithfully rises every day. 

When a person is consistently doing the right thing, they are called “faithful.” The longer a person does the right thing, the more you trust them and are loyal to them. The Bible tells us that God is always faithful, Lamentations 3:22-23 says: “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” It’s good news for us that God always does what is right, good, loving, and true, that he is faithful every day, every time; He is perfect. For us, our goal as people is to model what God is like, so since God is faithful, then we want to be faithful to him.

I’ve seen God use sports to teach us how to strengthen faithfulness in our lives. In a game, you need to pass the ball. Imagine you are in a game, and you look up and find one of your teammates wide open, so you do the right thing– you pass that person the ball. Here’s the problem, that person messes up the play, and the ball goes to the other team, and they score against you. Later in that game, you get the ball and look up to make a pass, which is the right play, but you see that it’s the same teammate who messed up the last play. You pass that ball again, hoping that this time they will get it right. Unfortunately, history repeats itself, and they mess up the whole play. Fast forward to the end of the game, there’s less than a minute on the clock; the score is tied, and you have the ball. You are headed to score, but then you are surrounded by the other team. You look up and find a teammate wide open. Who could it be? You guessed it, it’s that same teammate that messed up twice before in the game.

What will you do? Will you make the right play and pass again? Will you try to do it all on your own because you can’t trust that other person?

There are a lot of times in our lives where God gives us instructions on living and doing it His way, which is the right way. We may try it once or twice, but living the way God tells us to is not always the easiest way to live in our world. Have any of you ever done the right thing, but things didn’t go well after? What happened? 

Here’s an example: maybe you tell the truth, because God commands us not to lie, but when you tell the truth, you end up suffering consequences. You didn’t like how that felt, so the next time you are faced with the choice to tell the truth or to lie, you may be tempted to disobey God because the last time you obeyed God you didn’t like how it turned out. Our verse today in Hebrews tells us we don’t want to give up living the way God tells us to live. There will be a time when we will be rewarded for our obedience to God, but we won’t receive that reward if we quit doing the right things! 

Don’t let yourself think that God and his commands are like the teammate who always drops the ball. God is faithful all the time, and because he does not change and remains the same, you can trust Him to always be there and to always tell you what is the best way to live. If you have a hard time with faithfulness, remember this: God has never broken a promise he has made. This week’s memory verse is a promise from God, if you do good, obey God, you will reap the benefits of living right because God is not unjust to forget your work and is a rewarder to those who trust Him. (Hebrews 6:10; 11:6) We want you all to remember that God is faithful. We disobey God in many ways but he continues to love us. It’s not easy to love people who aren’t always doing the right thing, but that’s how God shows his love to you. While we are  unfaithful, God remains faithful.