By Faith

By Faith

It was by faith. Hebrews 11:4

THE WRITER OF HEBREWS BUILT HIS ENTIRE LETTER around one major point: that enduring faith is the entryway into the promises of God. He wrote primarily to Jewish believers who were tempted to fall away from their faith, to give up on what they had started, to question the validity of this gospel and how it fit with their heritage. So he reminded them of their long history with God, the nature of the covenant and priesthood God had established with them, and the ways of God in getting his people from point A to point B on their journey. The bottom line was that the journey has always been based on faith, always required patient endurance, and always come with great hardships and great rewards. He gives numerous examples—a section we now call the “hall of faith” in chapter 11. Again and again, God’s calling has involved stepping out in belief of what has been promised but remains unseen.

Fourteen sentences in this single chapter begin with the phrase “It was by faith . . .” The examples that follow demonstrate what normal people who believed God were able to do. They experienced miracles, great victories, and fulfilled promises. They experienced hardships, too—ridicule, persecution, extreme circumstances, excruciating waits. But the impossibilities they faced became possible because of faith. When people believed, God responded.

Faith is a really big deal in Scripture. It is such an uncompromising theme that the writer of this letter says, amid all the impossibilities that must bow to God, one impossibility remains: pleasing him without faith (11:6). Knowing God exists is not enough, though it’s a great start. We are called to live in such a way that invisible realities open up before us as we take steps of faith. We work in partnership with God to bring about what is not yet seen, as we walk with him to establish his Kingdom in this world. We bank our lives on what we do not yet see, and eventually we see. That’s our new normal, as strange as it seems to watching eyes. When we have finished our journey, God should be able to look back over our lives and say, “It was by faith.”

Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible.