By Faith

PRAYER PRACTICE

Spoken Prayer – Out loud, pray for God to speak to you through your reading. Praise God for giving us His word. Ask the Spirit to help you read with faith, and to live out what you hear from God through the passage.

 DAILY READING

Hebrews11:1-40

 

DEVOTION / REFLECTION

The Faith Chapter

by Pr. Dave Mann

This is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible, but probably not for the reason you may think.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped, the conviction of things not seen.  By faith… by faith… by faith…”  So many remarkable things were accomplished in and through the people of God because of faith.  Abel offered an acceptable sacrifice.  Enoch did not die but was taken up alive straight to heaven. Abraham and Sarah received a child even though they were “as good as dead.”  Some even more spectacular results of the faith are listed:  they “conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.  Women received back their dead by resurrection.”  Wow! 

What events in your life can echo what happened with these people?  Not many?

What makes this chapter near and dear to my heart is not the sensationalism of these extraordinary events.  It is the description of the pain that is woven in and through the lives of these people.  Listen to these less enjoyable parts of Hebrews 11.

•        These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. (v. 13)
•        …choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. (v. 25)
•        Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, … They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated (v. 35-37)
•        …wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. (v. 38)
•        And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised. (v. 39)

 

The walk of faith is a grand tapestry woven of successes, pain and suffering, and many days of ordinary life – all to display the greatness of our God.  This I can identify with!

 

Lord, use all of my life to display your glory – the moments of joy though they be fewer than I prefer, the painful sorrows though they be more numerous than I desire, and the day-in-day-out ordinary moments in between.  I am yours!  I trust you to weave my life with Jesus.  Amen.