By Faith
Hebrews 11:6 NLT
6 And 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.
Happy Labor Day. Hope you are getting some rest from your labor and enjoying the day off. For those of you having to work, thanks for keeping things going for all of us.
And speaking of keeping things going, this eleventh chapter is an action chapter. This chapter is addressing all the things done by faith in God. The author of Hebrews calls out the various men and women of God and what they did because of their faith.
To name just a few. Abel gave a more acceptable offering to God by his faith. He believed that he was offering to God his very best, and God was pleased.
By faith, Enoch was taken to heaven and did not die. Before he was taken, the word on Enoch was that he was pleasing to God.
Verse six is our verse for today, and it lets us know the importance of faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. We don't see the word impossible used much in the Scriptures, but evidently, without faith, we simply cannot please Him. The only way we can receive the salvation God has provided is by faith. We know we cannot work our way to God. It's by believing what Jesus has done for us that we enter all God has for us. And that is totally fair. God makes salvation and all His promises available to us, and we receive not by our personality or by our own efforts but by believing what God has done. To not receive what God has so richly provided for us, at a great cost, cannot be pleasing to God. Like buying your child a beautiful car, but they never drive it. The new car sitting in the driveway would not make you happy. You paid a high price for it only to have it go unused.
Faith is how we receive from God and how we come close to Him. We believe He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him. We believe God is real and really good to those who look for Him. We can't feel for Him or seek with our five senses, but we can believe in our hearts what God has revealed in His Word.
And that is how faith comes. Hearing what God speaks is how faith comes. As we read the Bible and listen to messages, faith comes. And as we act on what we believe, as did these men and women of faith in chapter eleven, our faith grows. It's a wonderful life cycle. We hear God's Word, and faith comes. We act on God's Word, and faith grows, which produces more faith, and we just keep going. We may never have to conquer an army by our faith, but we can win the battles we face and please God at the same time.
Prayer
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for the faith that comes from Your Word and produces results in my life. My faith is in You, Your Son Jesus, and Your Holy Spirit. My heart is to please you by faith.