Hebrews 11:6King
James Version (KJV)
6 But
without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must
believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
I am not the first or the last person to claim to believe in God but not trust Him in all I do in daily action and decisions of all kinds, big and small. I will admit that, like most humans, I think I can do it all by myself or that I have to do it all by myself, as if life is some kind of boot camp for Heaven and I have to prove I can get in and be a soldier for Jesus’ army. But this verse reminds me that I am wrong in my thinking. There are no tests. Exams. Boot camp. Soldier’s story. God did not say in order to please Him, be perfect without Him. He said just the opposite. You are perfect because if Me. You are made righteous through the sacrifice of Jesus and the acceptance of the Holy Spirit in your life. But none of this means anything to you—if you do not believe. You don’t trust Me. Ouch. That hurts. Spiritual skeptic.
That’s me for a large part of my life. I do not care for humans like God does. I do not wish to save humans who have chosen to fall away from God. I feel like earth and heaven would be a better place without them. I chose to do away with them in the flood, but I was out-voted. If this is you, if you can relate to loving God, but struggle with loving his creations, then you know what I am talking about. This verse cuts past this bitterness and says, regardless of humans in their sinful nature, believe in Him. Regardless how much people let your down, believe in Him. Despite the agony, grief and pain humans cause each other for no reason at all except they can, forgive them and follow Christ. Believe not in the world but in the way of Jesus. Follow Jesus. Not man. Man is stupid, but knows he is stupid which almost makes him smart. But one cannot apply God’s love-if one has no heart. To apply this message daily, to help keep the callus from building up on your heart, to help you from letting faith leak away, I recommend an exercise.
It’s like prayer, but open ended. It goes like this. Start off by changing the words of the verse to a personal statement from you to God. Like this: “heavenly Father, without faith it is impossible for me to please you. I must believe that when I come to you, that you will reward me if I diligently seek you.” Now it’s personal. You have spoken it aloud. Now stay in this all day. How? Well, it sounds totally weird but try this: start your day with prayer. Open ended. Good morning, Lord…do not close the prayer until go get ready to go sleep that night. All day, stay in constant conversation with Him in everything you do at work, school, errands, interaction with others and time by yourself, all of it. Just keep talking to him all day like a really long 15-20 hour prayer. Remember, 24 hours to you is 1 minute to God. You will have technically only spent a minute with Him.
But this exercise will strengthen your reserve, reduce
your bitterness and hopefully build or restore your faith. You will notice that
– or maybe not – surprisingly, He is answering you. The Holy Spirit is actually
with you and interpreting your prayer before it gets to Jesus and before it is
passed up to God. You are literally talking to God all day. By doing this, you
are also watching what you say and do to keep your sinful nature in check.
After all, you are human, too and people don’t care for you neither. So put
your faith in Him. Not yourself. Not man. Man is dust. He will come and go. So
will you. Whatever man did today is but a microscopic spec to what God is going
to do tomorrow. To have faith is to believe. To seek Him is to care enough to
apply that less than 1 ounce of faith you have to get you through until the
Lord calls you home.
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