The Faith and Hope connection

Monday, July 9, 2012: Hebrews 11:1 – 2, 39 – 40 (NKJV)            Is faith connected to hope?

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.

And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

Is faith connected to hope? Faith is the substance of hope. The beginning and ending of the ‘heroes of faith’ chapter copied above provide a puzzle: are these heroes tied to us?

Tuesday, July 10, 2012: Hebrews 12:3 – 4 (NKJV)            Has faith in Christ changed you?

For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin.

Has faith in Christ changed you? Consider Christ; He suffered untold agony to pay for your sin. How can you keep on sinning so nonchalantly? Resist sin till it wounds you, till you bleed.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012: Hebrews 12:7 – 8, 11 (NKJV)            Do you accept God’s discipline?

If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.

Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Do you accept God’s discipline? We fail to even recognize or discern God’s discipline.

Thursday, July 12, 2012: Hebrews 12:18 – 19 (NKJV)            Is your faith in Mosaic Law?

For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore.

Is your faith in Mosaic Law? If it is, all you will prove is that you are a law-breaker. Even the 4^th was based on faith: their faith that manna would not spoil!

Friday, July 13, 2012: Hebrews 12:22 – 24 (NKJV)            Is your faith in the new covenant?

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.

Is your faith in the new covenant? It should be! Our spirits are made perfect in Him: His blood paid for our sin. Our new command is to love; our response is to worship Him.