The Devotion I'm Giving Tomorrow

So once every few weeks I get a little piece of paper in my mailbox at the office, informing me that it's my privilege and duty to lead staff devotion one weekday morning. Thursday, October 10th (read, tomorow) is the next time that's happening. So while I was preparing something to talk about, I figured I might as well post it here:

There’s a sticky note, at my desk, on the corner of my computer screen – and it’s the word and the dictionary definition of “steadfast”.  And the dictionary definition of the word “steadfast” is: “fixed in direction, steadily directed; firm in purpose, resolution, faith; firmly established or fixed in place.” And I traced it back a little further, into the history of this word, and it literally means “able to stand.”

The reason I have this sticky note, is that Monday of this week, this word was popping up everywhere. First in a devotional I receive by email every morning, and then throughout the day, until I finally looked it up and wrote it down and stuck it where I could see it, because apparently, I’m supposed to remember this word. Steadfast. Able to stand.

So I look it up in an online concordance that turns up literally every use of the word in every English version of the Bible, and just kind of see how it's used throughout scripture.

Some verses have to do with us: Joshua 1:9 reads “be strong and steadfast” in some versions. Psalms 51:10 begs of God “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Isaiah 26:3 promises “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.” In the new testament, it mostly refers to the early Christians: Paul or Peter advising them to be “steadfast” in faith and “steadfast” in prayer and Romans 12:12, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer.”

Then some are all about God. Hebrews 6:19 says that we have the God’s hope as a “a sure and steadfast anchor for the soul.” Proverbs 20:28 talks about God’s “steadfast loyalty.” And then there are innumerable times in the old testament that God’s “steadfast love” is referenced, in Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus and how God took care of Abraham’s family, up through First and Second Samuel and Kings and Chronicles and the Psalms as God was faithful to King David and his descendants, and even throughout the prophets as God is passing judgment on the nation of Israel for their sin and idolatry.

So I’m probably going to be chewing on this little word for a while. But I feel like the message is pretty clear. First off, in the midst of this world where everything shifts and changes throws us off course, God is faithful, firm, fixed, and steadfast; we are able to stand on him, his promises, his Word. The salvation he offers us in Jesus Christ cannot be taken away. God’s love is endlessly steadfast. Then building on that foundation, God calls us to be steadfast, even though it’s in our nature to change. To stand firm in faith. To be faithful in prayer. To love like he loves: steadfastly, even though undeserved, regardless of harm done to us. And it all seems to come back to that idea of just loving well, of investing joyfully in others, of giving of ourselves .

Most of the times I choose [Come Thou Fount] for devotion, I pick it because it’s my favorite, not

because it has anything to do with what I’m talking about. But this time, it seems appropriate. "O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be! Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above."