Tag Archives: hebrews 11

June 6, 2023 · 5:36 AM

Consider God’s Benefits

In recent years, there’s been a rise of subscription apps. They got them for TV, groceries and a host of other things. The market place is getting crowded, so they’ve started to add incentives. I didn’t even consider getting the grocery app I have now until they started adding benefits to owning it. I get ten cents off a gallon of gas, which adds up to offset the cost. I also get free deliver of online items or even in store groceries. They also added a year’s subscription to a TV app to the benefits package. All of a sudden it had enough value for me to go ahead and pay. To me, the benefits now outweigh what it costs me to make it worth it. We do this same analysis in many areas of our lives.

If you’re familiar with the Bible, you’ve probably heard that Hebrews 11 has been called the Hall of Faith. It’s full of people in the Bible who had to trust God through difficult circumstances. They held onto their faith in God when all seemed lost. Verse 37 says, “Some of these faith champions were brutally killed by stoning, being sawn in two or slaughtered by the sword. These lived in faith as they went about wearing goatskins and sheepskins for clothing. They lost everything they possessed, they endured great afflictions, and they were cruelly mistreated” (TPT). Each of the heroes of the faith paid a high price, but they keep the benefits of following God in mind to help them endure. Many never saw the fulfillment of their promise from God, but because they held onto their faith, their future generations did.

Romans 6:22 says, “But now, as God’s loving servants, you live in joyous freedom from the power of sin. So consider the benefits you now enjoy—you are brought deeper into the experience of true holiness that ends with eternal life!” You and I must also keep in mind the benefits that God offers us as we continue down the path of Christianity. You may not be faced with the same hardships these heroes of the faith had to, but you will still face difficulty times and be forced to trust in God instead of your circumstances. Our faith comes at a cost to us. It is freely given to us, but living in the world while being separate from it can be difficult at times. Trusting God over what we see can exact a price in our lives. Always keep in mind that God has more in store for us than we can even comprehend now. Remember all His benefits and hold fast to your faith. He will always do what He promised.

Photo by Sergi Kabrera on Unsplash

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March 3, 2022 · 5:30 AM

Faith’s Eyes

As Christians, one of the hardest things for any of us to do is to walk by faith and not by sight. I’ve read that 90% of all information we send to the brain is visual. So it’s only natural for our brain to trust what we see instead of what we don’t. I loved the scene from “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” where he has to take a leap of faith off the cliff. He looks down and sees a huge drop that will kill him, but he steps off anyway. He drops about a foot and a hidden ledge catches him. More often than not, that’s how God Call’s us to live.

Abraham in the Bible is a person who believed what God said. His eyes were sending information to his brain that was contrary to what God was telling him. No one could get pregnant at Sarah’s age. In fact, Sarah laughed when she heard that she was going to conceive. It was impossible from their perspective, but they didn’t let that keep them from acting in faith. Less than a year later, Isaac was born. He was a constant reminder to them that God is able to do what He promises no matter what our eyes tell us.

Romans 4:18 says, “Against all odds, when it looked hopeless, Abraham believed the promise and expected God to fulfill it” (TPT). Abraham was human just like us, but he chose which information to believe. I don’t know what impossibility hopeless odds you’re looking at today, but if God promised something other than what you see, choose to believe His Word. You may have to be like the man who told Jesus in Mark 9, “Lord I believe, but help my unbelief.” Learning To look through faith’s eyes is never easy, but it is the only way for believers. Trust God more than what you see.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Throwback Thursday is a feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

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December 27, 2021 · 5:27 AM

Seeing Beyond The Horizon

I used to work for a company who wanted to always be forward thinking. They adapted the word horizon into their name as a constant reminder to always be looking ahead. They figured that if they were always looking to the horizon, they would see what’s coming and be able to adapt and change in order to embrace it. The horizon has always represented the edge of man’s vision. Most people on,y look at what’s just in front of them rather than off into the distance. If we could see beyond the horizon, we would know the future. As Christians, faith is trusting God for what’s out of our ability to see.

If you’ve ever read Hebrews 11, you know it’s a list of people in the Bible who had strong faith. I always heard it called “The Hall of Faith” as I was growing up. The people listed are ordinary men and women who simply trusted God for things they couldn’t yet see. They looked beyond their current situation and had faith that what was unseen was greater than what was seen. Verse 13 says, “These heroes all died still clinging to their faith, not even receiving all that had been promised them. But they saw beyond the horizon the fulfillment of their promises and gladly embraced it from afar. They all lived their lives on earth as those who belonged to another realm” (TPT).

How many times do you get frustrated with God because the things He promised have yet to come through? It’s tough to stand in today’s problems knowing that tomorrow’s promises could solve them. However, God knows the best time to make good on His promises. Will you still trust Him even if He doesn’t come through right now when you think it matters most? Faith is seeing beyond your current circumstances, even beyond the horizon, and knowing that God will do what He says. It’s embracing His promises even when it looks like they’re never going to come. God only knows what the future brings. As Corrie Ten Boom said, “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

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March 3, 2021 · 5:52 AM

Have Patience

Do you ever find yourself saying phrases your parents used to say? It drives me nuts because as a kid I swore I would never say those to my kids. One that I find myself saying to my son often is, “Have patience.” I’m trying to teach him at an early age one of the things I so often lack. There are certain things in life that I’m pretty good at being patient for, but there are a lot more things where I lack it. One of the hardest things to have patience for is an answer to prayer. If I needed it later, I wouldn’t be praying for it right now. I can stomp my feet, yell and do whatever to get God’s attention, but many times, it feels like instead of answering, He’s whispering back, “Have patience.” In those times, it’s best to just simply wait on the Lord and to trust His timing.

If you’ve ever read Hebrews 11, you’ve read about a lot of people who had patience and faith. When I was growing up, it was referred to as the “Hall of Faith”. Verse 13 always stood out to me. It said, “These heroes all died still clinging to their faith, not even receiving all that had been promised them” (TPT). I remember thinking, “What?!? They died being patient?” As an adult, I cling to the second part of that verse. It says, “But they saw beyond the horizon the fulfillment of their promises and gladly embraced it from afar. They all lived their lives on earth as those who belonged to another realm.” Now I ask myself, “Can I see beyond the horizon? Can I embrace God’s answers that are far away? Can I trust God and be patient long enough for Him to do things in His timing?” It’s challenging, but a lot of what faith is, is waiting and believing.

David understood this. In Psalm 40:1, he wrote, “I waited and waited and waited some more, patiently, knowing God would come through for me. Then, at last, he bent down and listened to my cry.” This verse tells me he spent a lot of nights crying as he waited on God. We like God to answer quickly and think He should every time, but having faith may mean a lot of sleepless nights waiting on Him to answer. When Jesus talked of prayer, like in the parable of the person who received a visitor at midnight (Luke 11), He told us to be relentless in our pursuit of answers. We have to keep asking, keep seeking and keep knocking. I don’t know why, but I believe God grows things in us in the process of waiting. If God has answered your cries yet, keep knocking on the door to His throne room, and have patience.

Photo by Mikael Kristenson on Unsplash

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July 30, 2018 · 5:39 AM

Beyond The Horizon

While watching the recent lunar eclipse online, I learned some new things from the astrophysics who were giving a play by play. One of the things was that from the time you see the sun touch the horizon, until it goes down, you are not really seeing the sun. You are actually seeing a reflection of the sun that has already dipped below the horizon. Because of air density and the curvature of the earth, it creates a mirage that reflects an image of the sun back above the horizon. So when you’re watching a sunset with the sun going below the horizon, you’re actually looking beyond the horizon.

I think that’s pretty cool because until that point, i thought we could only see as far as the horizon. When you read Hebrews 11, you read about the great heroes of our faith. They were the men and women who trusted God without seeing what He was talking about. That’s really what faith is. If you could see what you believe in, it’s not really faith. Trusting God is following where He leads before there is anything there to see. It’s truly looking beyond your visual limitations and seeing into the future.

Hebrews 11:13 says, “These heroes all died still clinging to their faith, not even receiving all that had been promised them. But they saw beyond the horizon the fulfillment of their promises and gladly embraced it from afar” (TPT). What has God been asking you to do that’s beyond your current vision? It may be over the horizon, but if He’s asking you to move towards it. Trust the vision of what you truly can’t see at this moment, and start acting in faith. The life God has called us to is always beyond the horizon. It’s up to us to trust in what He can see more than what we can see.

Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

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May 27, 2014 · 7:49 AM

Let It Go

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The other night, my nephew and I went for a late night Wal-Mart run. We just needed to get one thing. As we entered the store, he asked, “Do you want a basket?” I told him we didn’t because we only needed this one item. As we walked past the aisles on the way, I spotted something my wife would love. I said, “Let’s get a box of these for your aunt!” As we went down the aisle, I spotted something else. The further into the store we went, the more I grabbed. He asked, “Are you sure we don’t need a basket?” I declined again. By the time we got to the item we were after, our hands were full.

I limited myself to what I could have because I refused to let go and to put them in a basket. God has great things in store for each of us, but we rarely want to let go of what’s in our hands in order to get more. When you think about it, that’s the underlying theme in so many stories in the Bible. Abraham had to let go of the place he called home in order to receive the Promised Land. What of he had tried to hold onto it? What would have happened if he refused to let go and to trust God?

Moses’ mom had to let go of him so that he could lead his people out of slavery. Moses had to let go of the riches of Egypt and his title of being the grandson of Pharaoh. He could have lived a life of luxury and had it easy. Hebrews 11:26 says, “He thought it was better to suffer for the sake of Christ rather than to own the treasures of Egypt.” When he let go of what was in his hands, God was able to use him for a greater purpose. Would we even know Moses’ name if he hadn’t let go?

Think about David. He had to let go of His sheep in order to rule a nation. He let go of what was comfortable to him. He let go of the job he had known since he was a boy in order to be king. He could have looked at the greatness God had in store for him and chosen to watch sheep instead. It would have been less stressful. It would have been easier and required less faith, but he chose to let go of what he had in order to embrace what God had in store. I wonder if we would have the Psalms today had he not chosen to let go.

I could go on and on with example after example in the Bible. Paul let go of his life of persecuting to be persecuted, the disciples gave up family and income, Joseph gave up bitterness to save his family and the future nation of Israel, Jesus gave up all of Heaven to walk among us so that we could be with Him one day. The story of the Bible is all about giving up what’s in your hand so that you can accept more from God. Don’t be selfish with what The Lord has given you. Give it back to Him and He will open the windows of Heaven and pout out blessings you can’t even contain. That’s a promise He made and it doesn’t just apply to money.

What are you holding on to that God has asked you to let go of?

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