An Invitation to Faithfulness

These are difficult times, barren when it comes to true commitment. Few commit themselves to anything transcendent unless there is evidence that the commitment will bring success, extravagance, or money. Life has become an existential pilgrimage in which no motivations endure unless the benefits are clearly visible.

Since nothing lasts, but everything is fleeting, an expiration date is put on it all. What exists today will be gone tomorrow, and therefore there is no need to be faithful. Love for one’s neighbor seems ethereal, insoluble, a matter of convenience or of the moment. People do not want ties that would keep them from their selfish desires, and the noble souls of men and women who follow Christ in humility mourn each day because true convictions and values seem to have died for good. Can we change the world? No! Yet we can work with God to transform it. God has a Plan A for doing so, and there is no Plan B. Without God at the center of everything, humanity’s recipes for improving the world come up woefully short on salt and lack good ingredients.

These days, it seems the fire no longer forges and the water no longer refreshes. Faced with the false promises of security and hope offered by those who have everything and nothing to lose, to fold our arms rather than raise the cross of Christ as a banner of hope is to play into the hands of relativism and the inconsistencies that prevail. It is to make ourselves accomplices, even with the Bible under our arms, and resign ourselves to bringing flowers to the funeral where human virtue seems to lie—that is, the inclination to do good to others while casting aside all that is evil.

Could it be that we sometimes doubt that God is in control? What is God’s counsel for these times? What are we Christians doing to repay with good the evil the world does? What place are we giving the church’s mission in our city? Why are there so few revivals?

Faith is lacking, as is faithfulness. If we do not do it, who will? The whole transcendent significance of who we are and what we do rests on faith. God wants faithfulness to his Word, faithfulness because of who he is, faithfulness born of gratitude for what he has done for us and what he will do. Faithfulness means knowing our limitations, opening ourselves to the world with humility and a spirit of self-denial for the sake of what we believe; recognizing that only God can turn circumstances in his favor, trusting that the power of his Spirit is beyond comparison with any other power, whether in earthly or heavenly realms.

If we Christians lose heart in the face of society’s growing secularization, we fall into a litany with no answers “on the menu.” At the banquet of life, with God as our refuge and hope, “the menu”—figuratively speaking—is and always will be his Word, offering counsel, instruction, and assurance. There is no other option. Only God’s Plan A for this world. But to make a worthwhile contribution, we must also oppose the theology of garlands and empty talk, and embrace faith as loyalty and steadfastness in what we do and, even more, in who we are. If the love of Christ does not move us from our seats, then, as the body of Christ, we are not living in keeping with the Word of God, nor do we qualify to be instruments for spreading the virtues of his Gospel and fellow workers in extending his Kingdom.

Do we want revival? Let us ask God first to revive our faith. It is impossible to give life while acting as though we were dead, or worse, while appearing to live with a calling to serve our neighbor in need of God, yet choosing instead to cross the pond to satisfy personal ambitions and serve God where he neither needs you nor has called you. Faithfulness to God is life. Perseverance produces a genuine spiritual sense of service to God, right where he has called you for his glory. The temptation to flee can always arise, but God rewards those who remain faithful.

And to those who have centered their lives on faith and firmly embrace the theology of hope (as opposed to the theology of garlands, the “flashes,” and the torrent of words)—whether in my country, Cuba, or elsewhere on planet Earth—a reminder: Be faithful, remain, put down roots in your convictions until death! God has not lost control!

God bless you!