Josie was away on a business trip last week from Tuesday evening till Friday morning. After picking her up at the airport, we went to the McDonald near our place for breakfast and as usual we talked. Interestingly, the first thing she asked me to do was to read from a passage from a devotional book “God’s Creative Power” about faith giving substance to hope and the reference was from Mark 5:25-35 and Hebrew 11:1.
Mark 5:25-35 (NASB)
25 A woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years, 26 and had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse— 27 after hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak. 28 For she thought, “If I just touch His garments, I will get well.” 29 Immediately the flow of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. 30 Immediately Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power proceeding from Him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched My garments?” 31 And His disciples said to Him, “You see the crowd pressing in on You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’” 32 And He looked around to see the woman who had done this. 33 But the woman fearing and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. 34 And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your affliction.”
Hebrews 11:1 (NASB)
1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Recently, other than the tagline “In God We Trust”, we have grown and decided to accept Hebrew 11:1 as our tag-verse. We were talking today and when we talk about “trust”, it is synonymous with belief and faith in God and you cannot dissociate “Trust” away from “Faith” or vice versa. They are truly integrated because how can you say you trust God but have no faith or how to have faith in God but no trust in Him?
The story of this women and Hebrew 11:1 resonated with me because in the small devotional book, the subject matter was “Faith Gives Substance to Hope” and it was further explained that for this women and quoting from the book “Her faith gave substance to and brought about the manifestation of healing that was already hers because of the covenant.” Thus we believe and trust and have faith that God will give substance to our hope and therefore give rise to our conviction of the things not seen.
And all this leads me to the following passage:
And all this leads me to the following passage:
Philippians 3:7-11 (NASB)
7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
It is as Brother Lawrence had said “So I made up my mind to give all to gain all,..” and further exemplified by Philippians 3:7 where it says “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.”
You might be wondering where the connection between Hebrew 11:1 and Philippians 3:7-11 is?
My view is that when we by faith allowed hope to take hold of our lives and we have the conviction of faith to grasp what is not seen, then we can give all in order to gain all for it is also through faith that we gain the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith as written in Philippians 3:9 “…and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith…”
Faith is the one substance that binds all for it is also by faith that we believe in Salvation bought through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross as it is written in Philippians 3:10-11 “10…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” and is also an affirmation of John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (NASB)
I leave you with one last quote from Brother Lawrence “That all things are possible to him who believes, less difficult to him who hopes, still less difficult to him who loves, and easiest of all to him who perseveres in all three virtues.”
In God We Trust.
Hebrew 11:1
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