These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.” (Hebrews 11:39-40)
Most of us like a movie with a happy ending. The hero survives the adventure, defeats the bad guys, and saves the day to live happily ever after. But some of the richest stories don’t arrive at such a tidy end. The hero does everything he or she is supposed to do – and still dies without figuring out the mystery or saving the day. His part runs out before the story does.
The writer of Hebrews describes all those Old Testament heroes that way. They lived by faith. They obeyed God because they believed him. And they died without ever seeing the ultimate point of the story. They never saw Jesus. That makes their faith even more heroic to me.
We take our part of the story for granted, don’t we? We’ve been told the beginning, middle, and ending. We know all about Jesus – about his heroic death in our place and our future with him through faith. Do we trust God more or less than they did?
Think: Would my faith be stronger or weaker if I had to go through what the OT faith heroes did? (See Hebrews 11:32-38)
Pray: Pick a few of those trusting champions described in Hebrews 11 and thank God specifically for their example.
Do: Finish this sentence, “By faith today, I will . . .”