He Is Faithful

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)

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Thus begins the great chapter on faith found in the Book of Hebrews. The word "now" brings us back to the theme found in the previous chapter. The people the author of Hebrews wrote to were enduring very difficult times. Jewish by birth or as converts, they had come, by faith, to know Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. Now, instead of being led to the knowledge of the truth by Jewish customs, laws and sacrifices, they had something much better; "And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us . . . saying, 'This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days says the Lord; I will put My laws upon their hearts, and upon their mind I will write them'". (Hebrews 10: 15-16)

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The Jewish people had a temple which was patterned after the wilderness tabernacle, which itself was patterned after a tabernacle in Heaven. In the wilderness tabernacle there was a most holy place where the presence of God resided, the entrance blocked by a veil. Every year the Jewish high priest would enter through the veil into the most holy place to sprinkle the blood of a sacrifice as an offering for the sins of the nation. At the moment Jesus died on the cross the actual veil in the temple in Jerusalem, said to be two inches thick, tore from top to bottom. From then on all men, not just Jews, could come before the presence of God through the blood of Jesus; "by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh". (v.20) Jesus Christ offered His own blood in the original tabernacle in Heaven as an offering for our sins, and He becomes, for all who come to Him by faith, "a great high priest".

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This high priest does not have to continually offer His blood as a sacrifice for our sins. It was offered, once for all; "But He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God". (v.12) When we come to Him by faith the Holy Spirit, because of the shed blood of Jesus, can bring the Spirit of Christ into our hearts so that we can become a new creation. The blood of Christ is not applied each time we sin. Instead, at conversion, it has changed who we are. We now have relationship with Jesus brought about through our faith in His shed blood. Out of that relationship develops fellowship with Him. Sin and rebellion affects the closeness of our fellowship. Yet the Holy Spirit is able to cleanse our body and our heart to restore any lost fellowship. The Spirit calls, revealing to us who Jesus is. We answer by faith, receiving new life by having a changed spirit. Our spirit, or heart, has now become a temple for the Holy Spirit, who will guide us and enable us to have fellowship with the Father.

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God is now truly our Father, and Jesus, the first born of creation, is not only our High Priest, our Lord and Savior, but in a real sense is also our brother. Although Jesus became man, and lived among us in this physical world, experiencing the good things that the physical world has, He also was tempted as we are, and endured suffering and sorrow. Jesus, with a resurrected physical body, resides in Heaven, and although we still have an un-resurrected physical body our true citizenship is no longer in this physical world. Jesus leads us by the gentle prodding of the Spirit to a life that can overcome the world.

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There are different kinds of faith. One leads to our eternal salvation, a salvation which we will know and experience in our lives now. It begins with faith, changes who we are, and positions us to be a holy people before the Lord for eternity. We are a holy people, not by what we do but by what He has already done. Through the blood of Jesus we have already overcome the world, but being in the world still affects both our walk with Christ and the fellowship that He greatly desires with us now.

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A second kind of faith gives us the ability to resist the compromises of this world. We are confronted by attacks that are physical, mental, emotional and spiritual, and each one is a type of persecution designed by the enemy to take something away from us, and to rob us of our fellowship with the Father. The enemy wants us to focus on the pain and struggles at hand, or on the false promises of happiness and security that the world seems to provide. But God has provided for us another Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who will help us through the struggles of today and lead us toward the direction that God has planned for us. The Hebrew Christians, being in a time of great stress, wanted the comfort of familiar customs and ritual. They were looking at their lives from the lens of where they were and not from the perspective of where God was leading.

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Thus we see the context of the faith examples in Hebrews 11. Even though these are Old Testament examples, they are testimonies that God will reward those who have to make difficult choices because they saw by faith a greater reality. Many did not see or experience the full evidence of the promises during their physical lives, but their obedience to the word that God gave them made possible the plan that God desired for them and their offspring. Many had to wait until only a miracle of God could make happen His promise, and although discouraged, they still trusted, finally seeing in a physical sense what they through faith already saw in their hearts.

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We live in a culture that does not trust that God knows what is best for us. Instead of searching the scriptures with an open and humble heart to hear the Spirit and discover the heart of God for us, instead of confessing our sins before God and man and taking steps to change as the Spirit leads, and instead of carving out of our lives the time needed to fellowship with our Father, we would rather have the comfort of religious laws and customs, with the option of disagreeing with the particular tenants that make us uncomfortable.

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By faith we come to know God. By faith we begin to understand that His promises are just and true, and that He can accomplish in and for us all that He promised.

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"Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful". (v.22-23)