Living By Faith

This is something that every believer must do to be an over-comer in their walk with the Lord.  The Word says in the first part of Hebrews 10:38, “Now the just shall live by faith.”  How do we live by faith?  

To help these Jewish believers to live by faith, they were given these instructions in verses 19-25, which says this, “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”   

These instructions were meant to encourage these believers to remain faithful even through the hard times.  It isn’t hard to serve the Lord when everything is going good but when the bottom seems to fall out of our lives and we seem to be devastated by circumstances and situations and things beyond our control, that is when we find out if our faith will get us through or if we will just throw in the towel, so to speak, and give up.

Verses 26-31 say, “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”’ and again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’ It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” 

These verses were warnings not to throw away their confidence and reject their faith.  These were written to the Jewish believers who at the time were going through persecution and were thinking about departing from their faith, going back to Judaism.  This also applies to anybody that rejects the Lord, and His grace, for some other religion.  If anyone rejects the Lord and deliberately and purposely rejects His grace and walks away from the faith, once they have understood Christ’s atoning work, there is no other sacrifice because there is no other name by which a person can be saved.

In verses 32-39 these Jewish believers are admonished to look back and remember the former days and to hang in there and stay faithful. This is what these verses say, “Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. 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. So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, ‘He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.’ But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.”

These Jewish believers suffered to the point of being tempted to give up their faith.  Many of us have never experienced the kind of persecution these believers did, but as time goes on things will get worse and worse.  The time to grow strong in the faith is now before we have to face the kind of persecution that these Jews faced.  I know many believers are not being prepared for the difficult times that are coming.  Many believers are being lulled to sleep, so to speak, by watered down sermons and entertainment and are in need of a startling awakening.  

Please do not take this lightly, this message is meant for a wakeup call.  Please don’t ignore it, be like verse 25 says, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another and so much the more as ye see the day approaching.”  We not only need the encouragement and fellowship with believers today, but as time goes on we will need it even more.  We all come from different backgrounds and have different gifts and talents and we need to use them to bless each other and encourage one another.  This is something to think hard about, I hope you will.  God bless and have a great day!!  PS don’t forget to praise and thank the Lord.