FAY ROWE | Author/Speaker

I was reading Hebrews this morning on this slow Canada Day.  As I read chapter eleven, I flashed back to a time when I ... honestly ... didn't know what faith was.

I figured I had faith because I believed in God and trusted in Jesus for my salvation. I couldn't define it, though. I knew whatever it was, it was the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen, but that didn't help me identify just what it was. Those just seemed to be descriptions of its work, not a definition of it.

I had a vague idea that having faith meant being okay with God, whatever happened. aBut now I know that is really trust. Because I know God, I trust him. [I write about this more in What's In A Name.]

Then I realized that I was saved by grace through faith, and that I was saved by believing something (with the heart man believes unto righteousness), and confessing it's truth (with the mouth confession is made unto salvation). That finally helped me sort it out. Faith, obviously, was connected to believing something specific.

Saving faith obviously came from believing that Jesus died for my sins, and then acting on that by accepting him as my Savior and Lord. The salvation was offered universally, but enacted by personal belief and act of receiving.

This morning I noticed that all the examples of faith, from verse 4 on, suggest that these people all believed something, something that could be expressed in words, that moved them to act.

Even though we aren't told exactly what some of them believed, we can surmise.

We are told that Abel gave his offering "by faith." Verse 6 says that the very least we must believe is that God Is and that he rewards those who seek him, and our believing that pleases God! I wondered therefore, if Abel gave the offering believing that God would receive it and reward him for this act.

Noah believed and acted when God told him the flood was coming and whoever would get into that famous ... infamous, at the time ... ark would be saved.

Abraham believed and acted when God said there was a promised land out there somewhere for him, and (later) when he said that Abraham's promised seed would spring from Isaac. We see that "by faith" Abraham sojourned in a strange land, and "by faith" he proceeded to offer Isaac as an offering, which, as far as God was concerned, he succeeded in doing, figuratively.

Sarah (finally, after a slow start) believed the angels' message that she would have a child, and did.

All of these, and others, obviously received their specific promises in their lifetimes. What they didn't receive was the greater promise of Jesus coming. But they died "in faith" still believing in that heavenly city they looked for.

Many of us today have by faith received the Biblical promises that are specific to here and now, and many have died without seeing the fulfillment of the promise of Jesus' return. But they died in faith, and that faith pleases God. And some day we will all see that promise fulfilled.

"So then, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10 :17).