Faith and the Faithful

“Faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see.”

– Hebrews 11:1

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  For a few days the Lord has been impressing faithfulness upon my heart.  It happened first on sunday evening when we sang “Great is Thy Faithfulness” and I thought about the American church and wondered if we truly rely upon the faithfulness of God (but that is for another blog post).  It happened again, when I studied Abraham and his faithful following of God to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac, and again this morning when he pressed Hebrews 11 upon my heart.

 

  During breakfast I was running bible verses through my head for a little bit of memory practice, and I decided to commit a new one to memory.  Posted on the wall next to the table where I was eating was the above verse.  I quickly committed it to memory, and the Lord pressed the whole chapter of Hebrews 11 on me during my quiet time.  In my bible the heading reads “Heroes of Faith”.

 

  This chapter of Hebrews is dedicated to describing the characteristics of the faithful by using the examples of some of the greatest men and women of the old testament.  Let me just describe a few of them that stuck out to me:

 

Vs. 4:  Now without faith it is impossible to please God, for the one who draws near to him must believe that He exists and rewards those who seek Him.

*  By faith it is possible to please God.  We draw near to a God that we believe exhists, we seek him and we are rewarded.

 

Vs. 11:  By faith even Sarah herself, when she was barren, received power to conceive offspring, even though she was past the age, since she considered that the One who had promised was faithful.

*  By faith we can do things that we didn’t think were possible because we have faith in one who is faithful.

 

Vs. 24 – 25: By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharoh’s daughter and chose to suffer with the people of God rather than to enjoy the short-lived pleasure of sin.

*  By faith we give up our comfort, and choose to suffer, knowing that sin is short-lived pleasure, and following God in faith brings greater rewards.

 

Vs. 31:  By faith Rehab the prostitute received the spies in peace and didn’t perish with those who disobeyed.

*  By faith the sinner does not perish when they choose to obey.

 

  Those were just a few of the many characteristics described in this chapter, and I encourage those who seek to be faithful to study this chapter and the stories that feed into it.

 

  The Lord calls us to be faithful, and through our faithfulness we will please him.