Friday 26 Oct 2012

Friday Reading: Hebrews 11:8-13

Key Verse: Hebrews 11:13
13  These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

Devotion:
In so many ways I count myself lucky to be able to pick up a bible and just ready God’s Word, or even to pick up my mobile phone and open up a bible on the phone and even get it to read the words to me! But nothing compares to actually sitting down and meditating on what you have just read because it is then that God will be able to share more of His word with you. Just by reading the words we are able to learn, but by allowing God to explain those words we then get a far better understanding. Much the same as going to church and allowing the preacher to explain certain things to you, God will bring to your mind the things that He wants you to understand about Him.

We can look through Hebrews 11 and see just how awesome the faith of many people was; we see how they stuck to the scriptures, depended on God, allowed Him to guide them, waited patiently upon Him… and yet they did not have the same level of knowledge that we have today about Christ having been born, living, being beaten, dying, buried and rising up again. They knew it was going to happen in a fashion but they did not have explicit descriptions of what actually did happen.

How can we then not have faith in God’s Word when we have so much more of a description of all that has happened? I tell you that it is because of all the other things in this world that have also happened that we have a blurred understanding. We allow all manner of things to come into our lives because we listen to things we should not, hear then we ask not of, and have even more junk pushed down our throats than we know what to do with. Is it any wonder then that we get side-tracked?

That is where our faith must come in. We must remain faithful in the knowledge that God’s Word is the single truth and that that is what we need to focus on in our lives. It is not all the other trimmings that we need to seek, but God’s Word instead. Sarah and Abraham were able to focus on God because they heard directly from angels; but still they had their doubts. We now have this all written down so that we can draw strength from the truth that we now know. Let us focus on God’s Truth and have faith that all that He has said is all that we need to know.

Points to Ponder:
How much do you let into your life?

Are you crowding Christ out of your life?