“All these were still living by faith when they died.” Hebrews 11:13 NIV
“Everything God has appointed will be as He says – that can be a firmly held conviction.”
My thoughts today are about “firmly held convictions.”
Most of us do not live well with too much uncertainty. You know, something you hope will happen but prepare yourself in case it doesn’t. Things that you think you can count on but can’t be completely sure until they happen create a tension that complicates daily life. You probably will not balance that tension altogether well for very long. That tension causes a level of anxiety while you wait, and disappointment when your expectation is not fulfilled. Disappointment merely means, “Not as appointed.”
The answer to living in that tension without anxiety now or disappointment later is to have a genuinely held conviction that what you believe will come to pass, without imposing your own insistence of how and when. The Bible calls that faith. Faith is not imaginary. The Bible says that faith in God has substance and relies on evidence. See Hebrews 11:1/6 NLT.
Not everything that you have appointed to be a certain way will occur as you planned; but everything that God has appointed will be exactly as He says – that can be your firmly held conviction. See Acts 17:30-31/Hebrews 1:1-2, and read the sobering words of Hebrews 9:27.
It is important to know what things you can believe with certainty. You will believe a lot of things, but you cannot believe all things equally. To believe simply means, “to lean upon, to put your weight upon.” You soon learn that the experience of putting your weight upon an empty cardboard box is vastly different that sitting on the same box when filled completely with books! Some people’s promises will give way and disappoint you; you will learn the ones you can depend upon with firmly held conviction, and life will be simpler and less anxious.
Today’s verse describes people of faith who lived with firmly held convictions that God and His Word could be fully trusted – even if what they believed was not fully realized in their lifetime. Now that’s a lot of trust! “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only welcomed (were assured of) them from a distance. Hebrews 11:13 NIV.
Abraham believed so firmly and lived his convictions so faithfully that three generations later his great grandson, Joseph, gave these instructions as he anticipated his own death, “God will surely take you to the land He promised . . God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place.” Genesis 50:24-26 NIV. And still generations later, when God did as He had promised Abraham, Moses and Israel carried the bones of Joseph with them when they left Egypt and into Canaan when Joshua led Israel across the Jordan River. Read Exodus 13:19 NIV.
I love the conclusion of lives lived in faith. Here’s what the Bible says about such people of firmly held convictions, “Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.” Hebrews 11:16 NIV/John 14:1-4. It is better to live with firmly held convictions, when you rest those convictions securely on God and His Word. See 2 Timothy 1:12 NIV/Matthew 24:35.
My prayer for you today is to know what you believe and why, with conviction.