Living by Faith

 DEVOTION

TO HEBREWS

LIVING BY FAITH

Heb 10:32-39

32 Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. 33 Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. 34 You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. 35 So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. 36 You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. 37 For in just a very little while, "He who is coming will come and will not delay. 38 But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him." 39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

NIV

Although we did not have any real persecution as this author is talking about to those Hebrews this letter was first intended for, we do understand a certain kind of rejection by those we lived in sin with. Once we turned our lives over to Jesus and were filled with such enthusiasm that we wanted to share the good news with them, but they rejected it and did not want to spend any time with us, so we drifted away even to the point of no longer even being an acquaintance. We now have a new life in Christ and became acquainted, well actually family with a whole new set of people, who would stand side by side with us and us with them. We also have not had our property confiscated yet there is a truth here we need to ponder on for a moment. We do have a sense of having our own property. Of course, we buy our own property, our homes, or rent our own space, apartment, condo, etc. We consider our cars as our own and all our stuff, sometimes we have even too much stuff we store our stuff because we have so much. In some sense, we hoard our possessions or stuff, and our money. The truth is all of it belongs to the Lord. We are only temporary caretakers of what God has blessed us with. We have to face the truth that one day none of this stuff, none of our possessions, or how much money we have hoarded we will leave it all behind when we take our last breath. It is true that as long as we are here, we can enjoy the blessings of God, and take advantage of our time to be a benefit to His kingdom, serving both the family of God and the world around us. But the truth is we have a more lasting possession, and we should always be aware Jesus is coming back for us and he will not delay. They may have expected Jesus to come in their lifetime as we might also, when we think that he will not delay. The point is that we should not live in a way that we do not expect Jesus to come at any moment. If we become too invested in our own lives, even our ministry or service in the body of Christ, we might start thinking we will just live out our days, make our plans, do what we do, and what we have planned for, retire someday and eventually go to heaven. But we are not waiting, expecting, or anticipating Jesus to show up at any moment. Have we lost sight because we think he has delayed too long? Nevertheless, we are not going to shrink back, we will continue to live by faith, in expectation of Jesus coming for us, and we will continue to believe day in and day out. We will never give up living by faith.