In Faith Until The Day We Die
Tune in to the Live to Love Scripture Encouragement podcast by using one of the following links:
Hebrews 11:13
All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
We are encouraged by this verse that the faith God gives is a faith that sustains a person until they die. “All these died in faith.” They lived by faith and died in faith. Of course, this statement reinforced the Holy Spirit’s point made in 10:39. “We are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.”
Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Sarah all finished well. They didn’t receive what was promised in this life but saw them off in the distance. They are like a man living on a plain who sees the car of his son headed his way many miles off. He knows he’s coming soon, and in his heart already welcomes him with joy and great expectation.
In this example, the distance isn’t a few miles, but from this world to the next. What does faith do? Faith opens the eyes of the heart to see the promises of God in eternity. The next verses tell us what they saw by faith, which we will consider tomorrow.
I want to encourage you today with God’s faithfulness to keep you in faith until you die or He returns. Our confession is that our home is in heaven, not here on the earth. We aren’t looking for or expecting life here on earth to be easy and comfortable. God hasn’t promised that to His people. He has promised to be with us until the end and then receive us into His glory. So may we take heart in whatever we are facing that God will give us everything we need to walk through it by grace and to finish well. Such is the confidence we have as children of the kingdom of God.