By Faith, Step into the Future
From the North Rim of the Grand Canyon
God’s goal is, as Oswald Chambers states, to educate our faith.
Why? Because “Without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Hebrews 11:6).
“Faith must be tried before the reality of faith is actual.”
When my faith is tested, I often remind myself that the things, the people, and the circumstances that God uses to shape me have to be harder than I am. My faith has to be tried to become reality.
[This is the third post about Hebrews 11. See previous posts: Faith Illustrated: Hebrews 11 and By Faith What a Way to Live!]
By Faith: My Decisive Moment in Belarus
After the break up of the Soviet Union, my husband and I traveled with a group of Christians on a medical mission to the newly independent country of Belarus. We were present for an official ceremony of celebration of their independence that included the performance of a new national anthem. The people seemed deliriously optimistic about their future.
On another day, I was assigned to a group that would deliver medicine to Hospital #5. The hospital administrator, Dr. Valentina, graciously made time in her schedule to receive our group, even though as we sat at a large conference table, she responded to numerous interruptions––phone calls, people entering and leaving her office, all speaking Russian.
Our interpreter sat across from me, next to the pharmacist who led our group, as he would speak to the doctor on behalf of our mission. Before Dr. Valentina sat down at the head of the table, each of us had laid at her place a prepared personal testimony, briefly describing our Christian faith and reason for our visit to Minsk. When she sat down, the first thing she did was start looking through these leaflets. We didn’t know whether or not anyone we gave these to could speak or read English.
When she got to mine, she said, “This person gives God credit for her good life. Is it not she herself who has made her life good?”
In a flash, I faced a decision. Keep quiet or speak up?
In hindsight, I know God had prepared us both for that moment.
Once I started explaining to her reasons for my faith in God, my belief in Jesus, the phone stopped ringing, the door remained closed, and those seated at the table watched us both with rapt attention. My husband James said afterward, “You could hear a pin drop.”
Twenty minutes passed as if in the blink of an eye. It was almost as if I could see myself outside myself, wondering who is speaking? Where are the words coming from?
Leading up to this trip in the summer, I had been studying The Life and Letters of Paul in Bible Study Fellowship. I had written out as part of “my testimony” the verse from Acts 26, where Paul said to King Agrippa, “I consider myself fortunate to stand before you this day … .” As our conversation concluded, I pointed to those words.
For by faith, overcoming every obstacle to take this trip, I knew I was fortunate to be there.
There. Inside the former U.S.S.R., a place where, as a child, I could never have imagined this possibility. Russia had been closed to Americans since the Cold War. Now, by faith without a clue what could happen or why, I sat sharing my faith in Jesus Christ.
Afterward, Dr. Valentina got up, walked to the ledge along the windows in her office, pulled out from a vase filled with fresh roses a single coral rose. She then walked around the table to behind my chair and handed me this rose. Stunned, I asked the interpreter to see if Dr. Valentina would consent to having her picture taken. Agreeing, she wanted to go outside to the front of the hospital. I expected our entire group to be in the picture, but somehow she indicated just her with me.
Her remark, “She gives God credit for her good life …,” was the key that unlocked all that followed. If I had taken credit and let her comment float above us all without response, the moment would have passed into oblivion.
I know that the contrast between the hard life I knew as a child referred to in my testimony, and the life God has led me to possess (like a promised land), I can’t take credit for any of it.
Backstories of Faith
Referred to as “the Hall of Faith,” those named in Hebrews chapter 11 illustrated throughout their lifetime on earth what faith looks like. These life stories describe the process of being shaped by God into the person He created each of them to become for the purpose of the things God wanted them to do.
In the Bible (Exodus–Deuteronomy), we read how God formed Moses into the leader He would ultimately use to guide His people Israel further on their faith journey.
“Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, who did all those signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.”
Moses, by Michelangelo, 1513–1515, San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome, Italy
In Acts 7:17–38, we can read the background of Moses in 40 year divisions of his life. The first 40 years, as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter, Moses thought he was Somebody. The next 40 years, Moses spent on the backside of the desert, isolated, learning from experiences that taught him he was a Nobody. The last 40 years of Moses’ 120 years on earth, Moses got to see and experience what God could do with a nobody.
Fabulous years. Frustrating years. Fruitful years.
Hebrews 11 highlights Moses’ faith journey.
First, his parents hid him; he could have died with all the other male babies; his parents were not afraid of the king
Hebrews 11:24–28, note the verbs, the actions of Moses that illustrate his faith:
He refused to be called the son of Pharoah’s daughter
He chose to be mistreated w/ God’s people
He rejected the pleasures of sin
He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ
He looked ahead for his reward
He left Egypt
He was not afraid
Why?
The writer of Hebrews makes plain, Moses “persevered because he saw Him who is invisible.”
Seeing Him who is invisible stitches together all these stories in Hebrews 11.
The essence of faith is the ability to see beyond circumstances and like Moses, to somehow identify with the reproach of Christ. Why? Because as Frederick Buechner wrote, believers are woven into HIS STORY to illustrate something about faith in God.
Faith is not some pie in the sky hope for the best outcome you and I can imagine for ourselves.
Faith is exercised in the rugged places of life, places where you and I must make choices and take action.
Faith is not common sense. And common sense is not faith. Faith responds to revelation and is spiritual, whereas common sense is natural. (see Oswald Chambers, October 30)
By faith, Moses kept the first ever Passover
Exodus 12, God told Moses:
Kill a lamb, use hyssop, and sprinkle blood on the doorpost, believing the angel of death would see the blood and pass over the household protected by the blood. The firstborn child would not die.
Common sense questions. Seems weird. What’s that mean?
Well, the instructions could have meant nothing. Served only as symbolism. Never happened before. Only because God had given the instructions, Moses knew he could trust God’s Word.
When the angel saw the blood, the angel passed over where faith in the promise was observed. Those covered by the blood were spared.
The firstborn children of the Egyptians died during that fateful night (male or female). This tenth and final plague God sent on Egypt convinced Pharaoh to let God’s people go.
Moses and the people who followed his leadership moved forward by faith.
Hebrews 11:29–30 indicates the people then had to exercise their faith to cross the Red Sea. For the walls around Jericho, a fortified city, to fall, faith would lead the people to follow God’s instructions to march around the city for 7 days.
By faith, God’s People Enter the Promised Land
Hebrews 11:30–40 consolidate the history of God’s people from the death of Joshua (Moses’ successor) through the rest of the Old Testament.
Rahab is mentioned for her faith “because she welcomed the spies” and hid them. Her actions showed she chose to be identified with God’s people.
Lastly, the writer of Hebrews starts naming names. There isn’t enough time or room to name everyone whose faith revealed itself in God’s story, but each person contributed something about His character that God wanted known and remembered.
Named: Gideon, Barack, Samson, Jephtah, David and Samuel
Alluded to: Daniel (shut the mouth of lions v. 33)
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (quenched the fury of flames v. 34)
Samson (weakness turned to strength v. 34)
Women received back their dead (v. 35, ref. to ministry of Elijah and Elisha)
Others tortured, died, imprisoned
Isaiah (sawed in two v. 37)
Jeremiah (flogged, chained, imprisoned v. 36)
Two forms of deliverance are described.
Some were sustained to come through difficulties, then raised to go on.
Some were released to suffer no more and through death raised to a better resurrection.
The writer of Hebrews describes those who suffered as “destitute, persecuted, mistreated”––like Jesus.
“The world was not worthy of them” assures mistreated believers of God’s commendation for living by their faith.
Living by faith applies to now, assuring believers in verse 40 that others who lived by faith before us are waiting for us, waiting for the consummation of HIS STORY.
Something better, the writer tells us, awaits.
“The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit into the world.”
Like their stories, ours is a story in progress.
When you and I read Hebrews 11, this passage shows the many ways faith shows itself. Though faith is invisible and unquantifiable, God’s commendation rests on people everywhere and in all times who rely on God’s Word and live by faith.
Your turn:
READ Hebrews 12:1–3 Faith fixed on Jesus
Write out for your own benefit a story of your faith, something to remind yourself you cannot take credit for your life.
