Great is God's Faithfulness

A few weeks ago, the sermon was based on Hebrews 11 -- a wonderful chapter about faith.  As Jack preached, he brought some questions to mind.

Do we often consider that God has a great faith in us?  We sing about God's great faithfulness:

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.

Refrain:
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!

The hymn Great is Thy Faithfulness is about God's faithfulness to us.  He does not desert us; he will not fail us.  That's wonderful and amazing, but it's not what I'm talking about.  Don't get me wrong -- God is loyal; his love does not change, he will not leave us.  It's not particularly easy to believe, but because it is a characteristic of God, and not based on who we are, we can take steps toward understanding it.  But it's not what I mean.

What do I mean?  God trusts us.  He places his faith in us.  Like a king sending a servant on a mission, he entrusts us with what he asks us to do.  We are sent out to do the work of the Kingdom, and God believes in us, and in our ability to do what we have been sent to do.  Great is God's faithfulness.

God took human form and was born as Jesus.  We often think of God's incarnation as a human as degradation.  He is divine, but took on human flesh to save us.  I'm not questioning that, but Jack called it an act of faith in the goodness of what God had created.  He believes enough in us to become one of us -- like us -- human -- taking on the form of what he has created.  The greatest evidence we have of God's faith in us is the death and resurrection of Christ.

Do we live up to the faith?