Good morning friends! Today’s Negative Influence Trait is Unfaithful. I know as soon as I hear that word an idea jumps into my mind almost immediately and that is infidelity. The act of being unfaithful to our spouse. And trust me that is part of it but the concept of unfaithfulness is far bigger than that. This is an all encompassing unfaithfulness
And just like yesterday that being unfaithful is 2 fold.
This is talking about being unfaithful to God and to people.
But what does that mean exactly?
Looking at the definition of unfaithful online, we can see that there is that immediate first description of unfaithfulness as being a person who cheats on their spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend. (We already discussed this above.)
The second definition gets to the heart of why the first definition happened.
Unfaithful is defined as disloyal, treacherous, or insincere.
Disloyal is defined as failing to be loyal to a person, country, or body to which one has obligations.
Treacherous is defined as guilty of or involving betrayal or deception.
Insincere is defined as not expressing genuine feelings.
I have so many thoughts running through my head at this point but I want to remind myself of what the the opposite means. When we look at both sides of the coin it gives us a better understanding of what is important.
According to Oxford Languages online the word faithful is defined as remaining loyal and steadfast.
Loyal means giving or showing firm and constant support or allegiance to a person or institution.
Steadfast is defined as resolutely or dutifully firm and unwavering.
In light of these definitions…
We need to talk about disloyalty…
which means that we aren’t giving or showing CONSTANT support or allegiance to a person or institution. I think I could write a book on the one topic alone.
When we take the name of Christ (Christian) we are taking on ALL of the ways the Bible teaches us to live like him. We are claiming we are little Jesus’ We are saying we choose to live our lives like him. BUT too many times I hear Christians claiming to be something they really aren’t. They say I love Jesus and then their lives are full of reasons why they don’t live like him.
They choose unloving words and , they seek their own ways over his ways (if Jesus did that he would have never died on the cross for our sins! -Remember he prayed to his Father at the Garden of Gethsemane “Not my will but yours and let this cup pass from me ). And yet he made that VERY hard choice and set his human will aside and choose to do the hardest thing- Lay down his life for us. In light of that I think we are completely capable of choosing kindness. ) They choose negativity over joy, and anxious heart over peace. They choose rudeness over kindness and evil over goodness. Choices are made to be unfaithful , harshness, impatience and undisciplined behavior.
Treacherous???
And then there’s the act of being treacherous- not When I went into this I didn’t really have a good understanding of what this word meant but as I researched it . My eyes were opened to a new level of unfaithfulness.
“Guilty of or involving betrayal or deception.” AKA backstabbing and misleading or lying……to anyone. Do I really need to say anymore? That’s the epitome of unfaithfulness. And yet we do it to God (or at least we think we are ) and to each other. This is the backbone of disunity. It’s where it starts and it is where it carries it out. Just a quick note “being an ear to everyone” or “being Switzerland” is being deceptive. It is letting all the sides believe you are supporting them. If you don’t take a stand for what is right specifically if what is going on is following these paths and leading to disunity you are just as guilty as the ones leading the charge.
Insincere
Then we have insincere- which is not expressing genuine feelings. Now you might choose to gossip about your genuine feelings….but when a person hides their cares and concerns and hurts from God or those who we are close to than we are being insincere. If you are angry at God tell him- he already knows. But when we harbor that bitterness and anger in our hearts we are choosing to drive a wedge between God and ourselves….and our friends and family as well.
Being unfaithful destroys our walk with God, destroys our relationships with other people AND it destroys our positive Influence
Biblical examples of unfaithfulness
Saul
1 Chronicles 10:13 NLT
13 So Saul died because he was unfaithful to the Lord. He failed to obey the Lord’s command, and he even consulted a medium
First up we have good old Saul! We saw at the beginning of our list of Negative Influence Traits that this man was choosing his own path rather than trusting God. He was choosing fear of Goliath over having faith in the God of Israel. Well this attitude keeps brewing in his heart….he chooses hatred for David after David is anointed future king of Isreal. He chooses to have a negative attitude and an anxious heart, fretting over David hunting him down and attempting to kill him. He grows impatient and rude to David throwing things at him while he plays his harp for him.Then Saul seeks out evil over good in many areas, choosing harshness and a lack of discipline.
In the end, in an act of unfaithfulness to God, he seeks out a medium or fortune-teller to tell him what is going to happen. He could have asked a prophet but Saul knew what the prophets would say, because they had been saying it all along and he did NOT like what they were telling him so he chose another way…..and that led to his death! At any point he could have made different life choices, but in the end she chose the path of destruction….Our Continued unfaithfulness will lead to our demise.
Then we have Isreal on a whole
Here is just one verse out of many that I looked at
But you have been unfaithful to me, you people of Israel!
You have been like a faithless wife who leaves her husband.
I, the Lord, have spoken.” Jeremiah 3:20 NLT
As I studied out the word unfaithful the Old Testament is chock full of verses that talk about how Isreal chose their own ways- did what was right in their own eyes (the WHOLE book of Judges)- how they chose to not just worship the God of Isreal but also the gods of the nations around them. They mixed religions and that was against everything God had taught them.
A New Testament Example
We have the lesson of Ananias and Sapphire in the New Testament who chose treachery seeking to deceive God (and the disciples) by saying “here’s all the money” when they secretly kept back a portion for themselves. They lied to God and God’s servants. That’s a big no no. And yet we look at all these things and we say to ourselves “well I am not that bad. es I may tell a white lie now and then but …… ” and let the excuses begin of why we sin. Yep that’s what we do- we make excuses for why it is ok for us to be unfaithful to God and to the people we are called to be unified too.
So where do we go for a perfect example of faithfulness?
I know that was a pretty big set up! Sorry. God and Jesus.
We are told in the Bible That “God will Never leave us or forsake us! ” There have been some moments in my life that I have struggled deeply with the “why” when some absolutely horrible stuff has happened and there are times where it has felt like God just turned his back and walked away. Jesus felt like that too But his was more than a feeling God did turn his back on Jesus because despite his sinlessness on this earth he took on ALL of the worlds sin while on the cross…..Thankfully it didn’t end there- All I have to say is SUNDAY MORNING. Jesus didn’t stay dead.
But just in case the biggest example of never leaving us or forsaking us wasn’t enough
If we are unfaithful,
he remains faithful,
for he cannot deny who he is. 2 Timothy 2:13 NLT
Even when we are unfaithful God remains faithful – He CAN’T NOT be faithful!. (This doesn’t mean that we won’t have consequences because of our unfaithfulness- this means that we have a loving father who will discipline us and that we should repent our unfaithfulness)
So how do we move forward from here?
So instead of the “Now it’s your turn” section I post everyday on these posts we are going to change things up a bit. Because let’s be honest, we all fall short and we all make mistakes and we all choose to be unfaithful at times.
We NEED to choose unwavering loyalty to God and his word. What does that look like?
Love God with all Your
- heart
- soul
- mind
- strength
In the Month of November we will be delving into a mini series called Unfivided that will show what it looks like to live this out
And then there People. But when we choose to be faithful to God and ALL of his word then we are also choosing to love others like we love ourselves.
When we choose to follow God’s blueprint for Godly love (I corinthians 13) that we will be faithful to other people the way he wants us to be- not what is easier and most convenient for ourselves
Thank you for joining me in todays look at unfaithfulness. I know I didn’t really delve into exactly how it’s a negative influence but that will be addressed in tomorrow’s post entitled “Empty Amens”. We will pause the negative traits briefly as we delve deeper into insincerity, disloyalty, and deceptiveness.
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