To the faithful

(Cut this out of something else I was writing, so don't mind if it sounds like I'm in the middle of a paragraph- I was.)

"To the faithful, God shows Himself faithful, to the righteous, He shows Himself righteous,..." And I was thinking about it and realized; nobody is"faithful" on their own. It's simply not "in" us to be faithful on our own. If someone is faithful, it's because of the faithfulness of God being manifested in them. So one of the meanings of that verse is that God shows Himself faithful to the faithful by demonstrating His faithfulness IN the person, not just to them. That is, the very faithfulness of the person in question *IS* the faithfulness of God *IN* that person. So the reason the faithful understand God's faithfulness to a degree that nobody else understands is because they live His faithfulness. They truly become one with the Lord in Spirit, cf. 1 Cor 6:[16?], in the area of God's faithfulness, and thus have an intimate, personal knowledge of His faithfulness. This principle is true with respect to every part of who God is; anytime you manifest that part of God's nature, it gives you an intimate knowledge of that part of His nature because you're living it out. Remarkable.

The "downside" to this is that if you really want to have an intimate knowledge of perseverance, etc, usually it means you need to go through difficulties and hardships to get there. How can one learn to persevere without having something to persevere? How can one learn to love like God without having people hate you? Etc. However, it's not *really* a downside, because "blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness". It's really a blessing to be persecuted, etc, even though we might not recognize it as such. Well, I for one, have prayed that God would do anything and everything necessary to remove the barriers keeping me from Him, and this is a prayer that I still stand by.