Sunday Reading: Hebrews 11:4-7
Key Verse: Hebrews 11:6
6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Devotion:
Hebrews 11, the faith chapter needs to be one of those places that we revisit at regular intervals to remind us of the fact that our faith is so important; not a blind faith, but a trusting and believing faith. Abel was the one who had obviously listened well to what Adam had to say and took it to heart that he was not good enough to pay for his own sins. You have got to wonder just how many sins they could get up to back then – but it only took a few more hours before murder was committed! Each one of our sins carried the same reward – death. It is only by faith that Abel brought his sacrifice, hoping that it would be good enough to cover his sins. Yet Cain thought it good enough to make a big display of the stuff that he had made... his sacrifice was a showing of his pride rather than a true sacrifice.
Enoch had demonstrated his faith in so many ways that God decided to take him directly home without him having to face death at all! What a demonstration of faithfulness on God’s part and a demonstration of his love for us too that any man should receive such a reward for simply being faithful. And when Christ is ready to return a second time, that is the same thing that will happen to all those that are remaining faithful; we too will be taken up before our bodies die. If we are going to diligently seek Him, He is the one that is faithful to reward us with rewards that we cannot begin to think of.
Noah is one that had to take his faith and demonstrate it to a world that would never believe what he was doing. He had to stand firm by what God had told him; that it was going to rain and the earth would be flooded. If we want to be able to show others that we have faith, then we must be willing to stand up for what we know to be the truth, even when everyone around us is going to tell us otherwise! We need to remember that God’s power is without limit and He WILL do as He has promised.
Points to Ponder:
Do you have to test a chair every time you sit down?
Why test God every time He asks us to do things?
