Hebrews 11:1 describes faith as “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see”.
Hebrews 11:6 explains that “without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him”.
Hebrews 11:4 shows Abel’s faith.
Hebrews 11:5 shows Enoch’s faith.
Hebrews 11:7 shows Noah’s faith.
Hebrews 11:8 shows Abraham’s faith.
Hebrews 11:11 shows Sarah’s faith.
Hebrews 11:13 says that “all these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.”
I mentioned it in an earlier blog post, but I’ve been reading through the book of Genesis, and now Exodus, during my morning devotion time here in Ecuador. And after reading through some of Exodus the other day, I opened my bible to Hebrews 11. What it says connects perfectly with the things the Lord has been showing me throughout my time in Ecuador so far.
This chapter of Hebrews goes on to describe the faith of many other people whose stories show up in the old testament; Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, and so on. All of these men and women did remarkable things because the Lord asked them too, even if what the Lord said made no sense at the time. They had faith that what the Lord said would actually happen, even if it wasn’t going to happen during their lifetime. That is what verse 13 is talking about. These people knew that they did not belong to this world, they belonged to God. So when he asked them to leave their home, build a giant boat, or believe that their children would be more numerous than the stars , they looked forward with faith to see what God had for them. They knew that their real home was in heaven, so they didn’t lose faith if they didn’t live to see the promises happen here on earth. Abraham believed that what the Lord said about his descendants would be true, it wasn’t something that he had to make sure happened himself. Noah believed that God would keep his family safe throughout the flood, it wasn’t something that he had to do himself. Moses believed that God would keep the Red Sea parted as he and the Israelites walked through it, it wasn’t something he had to do himself.
I think this is a concept a lot of Christians nowadays have forgotten. So often we think that we have to be the ones to change our world. That we have to “do” things so that God will approve of us. The truth is that we already have God’s approval. We can’t earn it. It’s just who he made us to be. If we were of this world, and had nothing to look forward too, it would be an entirely different story. Then we would be searching for the approval of the world. As my squad leader Aly put it the other day, we would be human “doings”.
But God created us as human “beings”.
And human beings are simply created to “be” God’s people. It’s who we are. It’s our identity. We are sons and daughters of our Lord. We have his approval because he created us exactly the way we are supposed to be. And we have faith that that is enough. Because of this, we can do good deeds and obey the Lord out of his approval not for his approval. Abraham didn’t live to see all of his descendants born, but he had the “confidence in what he hoped for and assurance about what he did not see”. He believed it would happen. He had faith.
I’ve grown to understand that faith is a state of being. It’s not something you can do or act, rather its something that you do and act out of. We live the way we do because we have faith, not to have faith. Like verse 6 said, there are no good deed or acts of love that we could ever do to please God, unless we have faith in him first. We have to come into these acts with the belief that our God is real, even when we can’t see him or feel him, or our actions mean nothing. It’s like a cycle. Because we have faith, we believe that the Lord has created us with his approval. Because we believe that the Lord created us with his approval, we have faith.
Hebrews 12 begins by encouraging that “therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, we throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And we run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus”
You can imagine that this verse came up a lot when I was heading off on the world race, because well, its called a race. But I had never read what comes next. The verse says to fix our eyes on Jesus, “the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” We get to run the race of our lives with our eyes fixed on someone who showed us what faith is. Jesus endured the cross because he knew the joy and freedom that would come after. He didn’t stay on earth to see how many people were impacted by his life, because he knew it wasn’t his forever home. He believed that what God promised would continue to happen even after he returned to heaven.
Jesus died on the cross so that we could be human beings, not human doings.
Understanding this is incredibly freeing.
Like seriously, there is absolutely nothing we have to do to earn God’s love.
Yet we get to live our lives loving other people because we have God’s love.
I’m so glad we’re human beings.
