53 - Loyalty

Life Lessons with Dr. Steve Schell

It's not easy to define “loyalty.” Try it. Nor is it easy to explain why some people are loyal and some are not. In fact that's one of the most puzzling aspects about loyalty. Sometimes it's those to whom we give the most who abandon us the quickest. People we had every right to expect would be loyal to us, weren't. But then there are those who turn out to be loyal from whom we would never have anticipated such a gift. Loyalty seems to rise up from some place deep inside a person, and I doubt that most people could explain why they were loyal if asked. Something inside the heart decides to stay, to stand, to love, to protect, regardless of the cost.
Loyalty isn't a quality that can stand alone. It requires courage; it requires love, and it requires humility. Without courage it won't last; without love it won't start, and without humility it would never find anyone worthy of such commitment. It's thankfulness at a very deep level. We become so thankful to a person or a family or a community or a nation that a strong bond is formed; a silent vow is taken. We decide that we are one with that person or family or community or nation.
That's why loyalty is the key virtue in marriage. Without it love can't exist. Love, real love, doesn't come first; loyalty does. Then in the safety of loyalty we learn to love. In the Bible God compares His relationship with us to a marriage and disloyalty to Him as adultery. Above all else, He asks us to be loyal to Him, just as He has been loyal to us. We are to have no other gods before Him. It's heartbreaking to watch when people come to God, receive His help and then dispose of Him when they feel they no longer need Him.
Staying loyal requires many decisions, not one, because there is something in this world that hates loyalty. It repeatedly attacks it wherever it finds it. But to those who resist those attacks, to those who choose to stay, to stand, to love, to protect, it provides the foundation upon which true, lasting relationship can be built. In the passage we'll study today, we'll see loyalty rise up in a man who encountered Jesus.