Noah to Abraham, Faith in Action

God Destroys and Recreates

God Is Always Working

Hebrews 11:4-10 The Message

4 By an act of faith, Abel brought a better sacrifice to God than Cain. It was what he believed, not what he brought, that made the difference. That’s what God noticed and approved as righteous. After all these centuries, that belief continues to catch our notice.
5-6 By an act of faith, Enoch skipped death completely. “They looked all over and couldn’t find him because God had taken him.” We know on the basis of reliable testimony that before he was taken “he pleased God.” It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.
7 By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He was warned about something he couldn’t see, and acted on what he was told. The result? His family was saved. His act of faith drew a sharp line between the evil of the unbelieving world and the rightness of the believing world. As a result, Noah became intimate with God.
8-10 By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God.

For Reflection

Those that live as an act of faith live a life of connections with their history, their present, their future, with each other, and with their Creator.  Those that do not live a life as an act of faith but rely on their own devices to manage a life course live a life mired in a heap of unrelated fragments without any robust connection.   They cannot rest in their struggles.


Like the pilgrims who trecked to Canaan, we who travel with one single aim, to suffer the will of God, are delivered from the miseries of conflicting desires, and we walk with force and a calm spirit. We rest in the hope of the divine promise.

Pray
Pray so that you can rest in the hope of God's divine promise that all will be made right.


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