And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
Hebrews 11:6
We were reading this passage in Bible Study tonight and it raised a question I’ve always been wondering about. Why has God ordained that the world would only know, find, and please Him by the bridge of faith? Faith being the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.
We are taught that we are not to live by what we see, not by what we calculate, not by what we have tested, not by statistics or numbers, not by rationale or by common sense, not by popular vote or the opinions of others, or not what we esteem as wise, but by faith. And as the prophet Habakkuk prophesied, “the righteous shall live by faith.”
And as I thought further about this, the Holy Spirit dawned upon me why this was so.
He drew my attention to the futility of not living by faith. He reminded me the precariousness of all the things that the world finds so secure. The ground on which most stand on is but a sheet of paper. Whereas those who have hope in God have the most securest of hopes. And so the voice and the wisdom of men will be proven to be folly when the Sovereign God shows His righteous the rewards of living by His ways.
After all, living by faith, is not an ends in itself, but a means to something. Living by faith is God’s way of showing in part to us on this side of eternity what we were always meant to do- a life of decisions and beliefs birthed from an intimate communion with our Maker.
