Hebrews 11 is often called "the hall of faith" and is one of my favorite chapters, especially when I need encouragement. It reminds me of so very much.
One of the first things it reminds me of is that God has set us apart from the rest of this world. It's more then that though. While it's quite true that God has called us to be separate from the world, we obviously still have to live in it. In Hebrews 11:13–16, as in other places, He tells us how we're to do that, what our frame of mind is to be. After all, we grow up used to thinking of this earth as our home and we know that the only way to change a habit is to replace it with a different one. Here God tells us what we're to replace that habit of thinking with.
Instead of thinking of this world as our home, we're to consider Heaven, New Jerusalem, our home. He says that we're not only to think of it as our home, but we're to "long for it". That chapter in Hebrews shows us more then 16 different people who longed for their real home instead of some great mansion on earth, and some of the terrible hardships they suffered while they were here.
Now that doesn't exactly sound comforting does it? The hardships part I mean. But it really is in a couple of ways. First, it confirms for us that people of faith (for that's what these people are commended for) DO go through horrible hardships. It lets us know that the prosperity gospel's teaching that hardships are caused by lack of faith is way off base. Therefore we don't have to wonder or worry that our own faith is lacking because of the hardships we go through. I haven't seen or heard of a single prosperity preacher who's faith was anywhere near that of any of the folks named in this chapter, and yet they hold themselves up as examples. God's Word doesn't lie though, we know we can trust it, and His Word tells us that no matter how much faith you have, hardships, trials, sickness, death, and sorrow, will come your way. It's quite a comfort and very freeing to know that according to God, these things don't happen to us because of lack of faith.
There's another lesson in these hardships they faced for us too. We notice that it wasn't the hardships that caused them to yearn after their heavenly Home. That surprised me at first, but if you read it carefully, and you study the OT that tells about each of them, you find that they all yearned for their real homes before there was any hardship to cause it. So they weren't just longing to escape their troubles here and that's a major thing to consider. If they weren't longing for that, then what were they longing for that Home for?
The only way I know of to determine things like that, besides studying their lives, is to ask myself, why I'd get homesick at times when I was away from home as a child. That was easy...I wasn't longing for the house, or my toys, I wanted my Mom and Dad! And that, my friends, is what these folks were longing for: they longed for their heavenly Father and their Savior. "Home" was where He was!
There is a danger here that we need to be aware of though. I've heard of orphans who would feel "homesick" although they'd never had a real home that they could remember. What they were really homesick for was what for them was an "ideal" of what they thought home would be like-generally the opposite of what they'd experienced and usually not anything like the reality of what even the best homes are like. There are abused women who are heartbroken when their husband who's been abusing them leaves them. They think it's because they love their husband and he doesn't love them anymore, but he never did really love them, so why all of a sudden are the heart broken? It's because they no longer have the chance of the dream of the ideal marriage with them that they wanted. It's the dream or ideal that's gone; the reality certainly isn't worth being heartbroken over. There's a real danger of that with the Lord too.
We need to be sure that we're like those people who are mentioned in the hall of faith, that we truly love the Lord and not just our idea of who He is. You see, our ideas won't hold up under the pressure of severe trials, hardship and disappointment, but the real Lord will. We need to be sure that our faith and love is for the Lord and that we know Him well.
When we look at the people in the hall of faith, we see that they didn't even get what was promised and yet they still loved Him and their faith was still strong. That's the kind of love and faith we need to have. When they longed for their real Home and for the Lord, it wasn't for some pie in the sky made up mansion they'd dreamed up, but they longed to be with the God of Israel, who they knew well and thought of with great love.
It always reminds me of Daniel's 3 friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when the King threatened to throw them in the furnace. They told him that while their God could save them, that they would worship Him and only Him, even if He chose not to save them! Now that's faith! More, that's love! And that's the kind of faith and love all the people mentioned in the hall of faith had. Daniel and his friends were really still kids when this happened. They were perhaps around 18 years old. Can you imagine an 18 year old today that would love the Lord and trust Him that much?
When we compare our lives to those in the Hall of faith, we often don't see the love, faith, joy or hope demonstrated in our own lives. When we look at ourselves and at others at church, we often don't see many who obviously truly long to be with the Lord, and don't know anything about New Jerusalem or Heaven. How can that be when we have an even greater reason for it then they did?
That's actually a sign of the times we live in. I don't say that to excuse it, for it's still inexcusable, but only as a fact that the Lord knew this would happen before He returned. Thankfully there is a "cure" for it though. I'll talk about all this in my next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please comment so we can grow in faith together and edify each other.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.