Hebrews 11
October 26, 2012
SCRIPTURE
Hebrews 10:39 We are not people who turn back and are lost. Instead, we have faith and are saved.
11:1 To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see.
39
What a record all of these have won by their faith! Yet they did not
receive what God had promised, 40 because God had decided on an even
better plan for us. His purpose was that only in company with us would
they be made perfect.
OBSERVATION
Never give up! Never give up! Never give up!
UNDERSTANDING
In
all the examples we find in chapter 11 we notice a pattern -
God spoke a
promise to someone that was ridiculous in light of the present
circumstances;
the people believed that God would accomplish what He
said He would and they lived a present reality of a future hope.
They
lived as though the promise was true.
They experienced discouragement,
ridicule, persecutions sometimes for their belief but they stuck with it
and never gave up on believing God that what He promised would happen.
Some of them never saw the full fulfillment of that promise in their
lifetime but they witnessed it from heaven's perspective.
LIFE APPLICATION
I
needed to read this today. There are moments when you just get
discouraged because things are not as you imagined. I have lived with
God's word regarding DSC for many years, promises that have been
confirmed as God's Word and not the delusions of a young man.
(It is important that if we are going to live by faith regarding the promise
of God we better be sure He really promised it!)
I can walk in the shoes of
Abraham who left home country and all its comforts to go to a foreign
land because of a promise of what God would do through him.
I totally
understand the frustration of being promised the father of many nations
yet cant even sire a son. I get it!
But Abraham does not doubt God (in
the long haul), he does not give up and turn back, he continues. He
experienced the promise in part in this lifetime but sees it in it's
fulness from heaven's side.