Devotionary

There is a day coming when our faith will no longer be in the hoped for and unseen. There will be a tangible, lasting, and unshakeable kingdom in which we will live for eternity. The things of this earth are temporal and will one day be replaced with the perfect and permanent. This flawed, sin-ravaged creation will be renewed and redeemed by God. And it is for that day we are to confidently, expectantly hope.

The author contrasts Mount Sinai with Mount Zion, comparing the past with the future, the law with grace, and human works with a resting in the finished work of Jesus Christ. Unlike Mount Sinai where the Israelites trembled in fear at the sound and light show accompanied God’s presence and illustrated His holiness, the day is coming when we will enter into God’s presence without fear of judgment and as holy righteous in His eyes.

Our pursuit of holiness is to be a team effort, aimed at helping one another keep the goal of Christ-likeness our highest priority. The author is going to warn us against three very real threats to our faith: Gracelessness, bitterness and a lack of holiness. As long as we live on this earth, we must keep our eyes on the prize: Our future glorification and the guarantee of our holiness. That’s the objective.

Jesus lived on this earth as a man. He suffered temptations, yet without sin. He knew what it was like to be hungry and to go without sleep. He was well-acquainted with rejection and false accusations. And yet He was faithful to His Father and lived His life without sin. Jesus suffered. So will we. But like Jesus, we have a future reserved for us in heaven. While we live on this earth, God will lovingly discipline us. He will continue to patiently transform us into the likeness of His Son.

This is where it all gets practical and applicable. The characters found in chapter 11 aren’t there to make us feel small and inadequate. They were not provided as a means to make us question our faith, but to strengthen it. They were men and women just like us. They had doubts, concerns, weaknesses and moments of faithlessness. But they remained faithful to the end. And today, we’ll learn the key for us to do the same thing.

In these two closing verses, verses 39 and 40, the author sums up all the characters he has listed in his great hall of faith. They were all commended for their faith, but none of them ever received what had been promised – at least not in their lifetimes. God had something bigger, better and greater in store for all of them. Ultimately, their hope and faith had been in God and they had been willing to trust Him for whatever He had in store for them.

The one thing all of these people had in common was their faith. But their faith wasn’t always accompanied by ideal circumstances or perfect outcomes. Each has a different story of faith, but they all share a common focus for their faith: God. Some suffered for their faith. Others discovered the truth that, by faith, it is possible to grow strong even in weakness. Sometimes faith leads to victory. Other times it results in death. But faith in God never disappoints or fails to deliver.

Rahab was a woman of ill repute who had faith in God. In fact, it was her faith in God that kept the spies safe and her family alive. Faith isn’t tied to our spirituality or superior morality. It’s based on the reliability and reality of God. Rahab’s sinful lifestyle had earned her a well-deserved death, but this unlikely source, a prostitute, placed her unwavering faith in God – and lived.

Jericho would be their first battle in the promised land and, rather than strapping on their swords and shields and going toe-to-toe with the enemy, there were instructed to spend a week hiking around the walls of the city – in silence. They would eventually defeat the city of Jericho, but without firing a single arrow or throwing a solitary spear.

Over the centuries, there have those who have written this story off as either myth or a case of literary license. But the author of Hebrews believed it was a real-life event that revealed the actual faith of flesh-and-blood people like you and me. As amazing as the parting of the Red Sea might have been, the real miracle was that the people of God had the faith to step out and walk the path between those two walls of water. And the author of Hebrews makes it clear that they did so “by faith.”

In today’s episode, we’ll deal with his faith as related to the first Passover. Moses would demonstrate that it is one thing to say you have faith in God, but a completely different thing to put shoe leather to that faith by stepping out and doing what God has called you to do ­– no matter how strange it may sound. Sometimes God asks us to do the impossible and improbable. But faith believes and acts on that belief, trusting God enough to obey Him.

Moses is forced to leave Egypt because he had killed an Egyptian. But did he leave in a state of fear or faith? The Exodus account seems to paint a slightly different picture than that of Hebrews. But when we combine these two divinely-inspired passages, we get a much clearer picture of what was going on and how Moses left Egypt by faith, not motivated by fear.

Moses, as we have already seen, was spared a death as decreed by Pharaoh. His parents, acting out of faith in God, placed their infant son in a papyrus basket and set him afloat on the Nile. Discovered by Pharaoh’s daughter, Moses would grow up the royal court. But the day would come when he would reject his royal pedigree and choose instead to suffer with the people of God. And according to the author of Hebrews, he did so by faith.

Living in a day when the tide had turned against the people of Israel living in Egypt, Jochebed and Amram were forced to trust God with the life of their son. The Pharaoh was out to destroy him, along with all the other male Hebrew infants. And while the Pharaoh was considered a god by his own people, Jochebed and Amram were putting their faith and hope in the one true God.

Sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, Joseph would end up in Egypt, where his lot would include life as a slave, false imprisonment, and an unexpected, meteoric rise to the second-highest position in the land. But the main thing mentioned about Joseph in the book of Hebrews is his bones. While he fully expected God to fulfill His promise to return the people of Israel to the land of Canaan, he knew he wouldn’t live long enough to join them. But his bones would.