Day 316

Ezekiel 24:1–26:21; Hebrews 11:1-16; Psalm 110:1-7; Proverbs 27:14

YESTERDAY IN HEBREWS, we reached a point at which the implications of the gospel became clear: Because of Jesus, we can boldly enter God’s presence directly and individually as righteous sons and daughters. Today, we turned a corner and began discussing what is necessary to enter into and engage in a personal relationship with God: faith.

Obviously we’re not interacting with this concept for the first time in the New Testament. We examined it at length as we moved through the writings of the apostle Paul. However, Hebrews gave us a succinct —and famous —definition: “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see” (Hebrews 11:1).

In other words, faith is what allows us to see a reality and begin to live into that reality, even though it has not yet reached its fullness or completion. It gives substance to what is unseen.

If this is faith, then we must admit that we, as humans, are equipped —we all have faith in things we cannot see. Take love, for example. We cannot see it, but none of us would deny its existence. Or consider the arrival of tomorrow. We cannot yet see it, but we do not question whether it will come. We exercise faith in our lives every single day in one way or another.

The point in Hebrews wasn’t whether faith existed —few would argue with that. The point was that faith had always been part of the Hebrew story and had always been the essential piece —it preceded any other ritual or behavior and therefore must be foundational.

Making this point was very important to the writer of Hebrews, and thus, we were led into what has often been called the Bible’s Hall of Faith:

It was by faith that Abel brought a more acceptable offering to God than Cain did.

It was by faith that Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying —“he disappeared, because God took him.”

It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before.

It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going.

It was by faith that even Sarah was able to have a child, though she was barren and was too old. She believed that God would keep his promise.

This Hall of Faith will continue into tomorrow’s reading, but we can already see that the author of Hebrews simply began in Genesis and started working forward through the stories found in the Hebrew Scriptures. The intention was to reveal that faith had always been the activator and has always been essential. Why? Because entering into a new covenantal relationship with God through Jesus would take faith. And it would take faith to hold on to that relationship, come what may.

The Hall of Faith isn’t a list of people who were exceptions —but a list of people who serve as examples for all of us. Faith was the activator in their stories, and we will get nowhere without it in ours. As the writer of Hebrews put it, “It is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).

Consider what you’ve put your faith in today. Perhaps you feel like it’s wearing thin. Usually, this is because we’ve put our faith in an outcome —we’re expecting God to do something on our behalf. This isn’t wrong. We are all eternally in need of God’s involvement in our lives. However, when our faith is in an expectation, it’s not in God. True faith takes the long view that extends beyond what we may ever see in this lifetime. It hopes beyond our earthly mortality and reaches for God alone.

MEDITATION:

By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.