Without faith it is impossible to please God

In today's scripture reading I came across this famous verse from Hebrews 11:6: "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.". This rather bold saying about "faith" seems to echo a lot of what I read the last couple of days.

In Lamentation 3:22-33 the prophet Jeremiah wrote these famous verses "Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.". He wrote this while he was under severe physical and mental trial and he was witnessing the complete destruction of both his country and the religious establishment with which the Jews had come to identify themselves. How much faith did Jeremiah have to have to experience life so positively given the hopeless circumstance he found himself in?  This reminded me of a book I read years ago when I was still a young Christian.  The book "J. Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret" is a marvellous recounting of the missionary's work in China. While he was under severe trial (his missionaries were literally being slaughtered by Chinese war lords during the turbulent years in China), he received a letter from another missionary John McCarthy who wrote: "How then to have our faith increased? Only by thinking of all that Jesus is and all He is for us: His life, His death, His work, He Himself as revealed to us in the Word, to be the subject of our constant thoughts. Not a striving to have faith... but a looking off to the Faithful One seems all we need; a resting in the Loved One entirely, for time and eternity. " (from "The Exchanged Life"). This letter so changed his perspective that he wrote later: "God made me a new man! God has made me a new man!" Wonderful was the experience that had come in answer to prayer, yet so simple as almost to baffle description.

In Hebrews 10:23-25 "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, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching." we are reminded of the importance of meeting with fellow Christians regularly in order to grow in our faith and to live out this faith in loving actions towards others.

In the entire chapter of Hebrews 11, faith is defined simply as "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1). We can learn from the "ancients" (people of faith in the Old Testament) what faith looks like although we may not like the results: "All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. " (Hebrews 11:13). So when we pray, we may not get the answers we are hoping for, even when we pray according to God's will. We learn to trust that the faithful God has a better sense of timing of when he will fulfil his promises. It's the looking forward to these promises with full confidence and assurance that can change our reaction to life's circumstance. We learn to put life in perspective - this life on earth is but a very small journey compared to eternity. We are but "foreigners and strangers" on this earth. We have our eternal home waiting for us.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” (John 14:1-4)

"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)

It seems that the secret to faith is to know Jesus. May I experience his presence in everything I do!