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I had anxiously waited for this day to come. With great anticipation I approached the building where I would finally get to tour the Hall of Fame. All the great heroes I had read about from young on were memorialized here.
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My guide greeted me at the door with a warm smile and presence that made me feel like we had been close friends for a long time. “Welcome,” he said as he opened the large ornate door and motioned for me to enter. I stepped through the entrance into a large lobby area with a polished marble floor and vaulted ceiling with a painting of the universe.
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“Ah,” my guide remarked as he observed me gazing upward. “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible (Hebrews 11:3, NIV).” I nodded. “It’s important that you understand what we recognize here as greatness,” my guide continued.” I looked at him and said, “The great things they did for God.” My guide shook his head no. “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see,” he explained. “This is what the ancients were commended for (11:1-2).”
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I frowned wondering what he meant. How could someone be commended for just having faith? All the other hall of fames I had visited recognized people for their deeds, their great accomplishments. My guide smiled and motioned for me to follow him through a modest wood door. We entered a dimly lit hall with small gallery lighting illuminating signs with names printed on them. “That’s it?” I exclaimed. “I came all this way to see a bunch of names on a wall?”
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My guide gently smiled and said, “Come, follow me.” As we walked past the names of so many of my heroes, my guide would stop at each one and explain. “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going (11:8).” At Moses, my guide said. “By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible (11:27).”
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We continued down that long hallway as my guide told the stories of all the great names of the faithful. At the end of the hallway we walked around a corner into another long hallway and stopped. I stared at the walls, confused. “These walls are blank. Why?” My guide smiled at me with a gleam in his eye. “These walls are reserved for the faithful yet to come. There is a place for you if you choose to follow God in faith.” I frowned as he continued, “If you choose to persevere and run the race marked out for you (12:1).” He paused and placed his hand on my shoulder, “Fix your eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith (12:2).”
#WednesdayWalk through the Bible — Hebrews 11:1 – 12:3.
I was reading Psalm 67 and verses 1-2 convicted me: “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us — so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations (NIV).” Too often I desire God’s grace, his blessing, for myself. I seek to have his face shine on me so that I can feel his presence surround me and strengthen me. Yet in this Psalm, verse two tells us the purpose is so that God’s ways can be known on earth, that salvation would be “among all nations.”
I am reminded of Moses in Exodus 34:29-30. After he came down from Mount Sinai with the “covenant law” his face was “radiant because he had spoken with the Lord.” This caused Aaron and the Israelites to fear Moses. It was apparent to them that he had been with God. It demonstrated what Israel was to be to other nations. The blessings that God bestowed on Israel were not for their own enjoyment, rather it was so that other nations would know God and his salvation. As the last verse of the Psalm 67 states, “May God bless us still, so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.”
It makes me wonder if people look at me and see God’s radiance on my face, “the joy of the Lord” (Nehemiah 8:10). Do they sense God is at work in my life and feel a proper reverence, a fear of God. The blessings in my life, the abundant grace he gives me should flow into the lives of those around me so that “the peoples praise you, God; may all the peoples praise you (Psalm 67:5).”
On congested streets filled with chaos
I listen for you
On sidewalks swarming with people and turmoil
I look for you
In a crowded building filled with screens and distractions
I seek you
In a packed train humanity closes in on me
I reach for you
But you are not there
Yet in the solitude of the wilderness, I heard your voice.
“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” (Exodus 3:5)
In the quiet of the upper room we saw you.
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” (John 20:19)
In the crowded building we found you.
Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. (Mark 2:4)
In the midst of the crowd pressing in, I touched you.
She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. (Luke 8:44)
In my deep desire to hear you, to see you, to seek you, to touch you, I came to know you.
But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. (Duet. 4:29)
It can be difficult waiting on God to respond to our needs. Often our impatience is born out of our expectations that God will respond according to our plans and schedule. This is what we see in Exodus 5:1-23 where Moses followed God’s request to return to Egypt to ask Pharaoh to release the Israelites. He told Pharaoh, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness (Exodus 5:1).'” Pharaoh promptly refused Moses’ request and then imposed harsher conditions on the enslaved Israelites that made their work even more difficult.
Instead of winning freedom for the Israelites, Moses made things worse for them. The angry Israelite overseers told Moses in Exodus 5:21, “May the Lord look on you and judge you! You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.” That is the thanks Moses received for being obedient to God.
It is apparent that Moses had the expectation that he would go ask Pharaoh to release the Israelites and Pharaoh would grant his request. In Exodus 5:22-23 Moses complained to God, “Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.”
When God does not meet our expectations, like Moses, we can get angry with God. It is hard to remember that God has the long view of our life and that his timing is perfect. Often when we think he is not responding to our needs he is actually equipping us and preparing the way for us.
Such was the case with Moses and the Israelites in Egypt. If Pharaoh had simply let them go the first time Moses asked, all of Egypt would not have experienced the power of God. Because of God’s delay the Israelites plundered Egypt and were well equipped for their journey ahead as well as having gold and silver for the tabernacle and later the temple.
With each chapter of Exodus we can see the wisdom of God’s long view unfold as well as the consequences the Israelites faced for their impatience with God. The lesson for us is to rest in God and trust him even when we get impatient for him to act according to our expectations.
Occasionally, someone asks me, “What is your life verse?” Some people I know will instantly answer that question, but not me. For years I wrestled with trying to identify one verse that would encompass my life — a verse that would inspire and motivate me to continue my walk with Jesus Christ.
I found it difficult to identify one verse in the Bible that could contain such an infinitely powerful God whose mercy and love for me never fails. Then it hit me that this is at the heart of my faith. A God who never gives up on me, even though I have given up on Him many times. From the fall in Genesis through Revelation, we find a just and loving God who constantly seeks to restore mankind to Him. As we dig deeper into scripture each page reveals more and more about the Character of God.
This is the God that Moses remarked, “For what God is there in heaven or on earth who can do the deeds and mighty works you do (Deut. 3:24, NIV)?” The same God that caused Naaman to say, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel (2 Kings 5:15).” The God who Mary described as “…the Mighty One who has done great things for me (Luke 1:49).” The God who Paul said is filled with great love and mercy, the God who made us alive in Christ when we were dead in our sin (Eph. 2:45). The same God who the Psalmist wrote, “…what God is as great as our God (Psalm 77:11)?”
Now when people ask me what my life verse is I tell them, “Gen. 1:1 – Rev. 22:21.” The typical response is, “But that’s the entire Bible. You can’t do that! A life verse has to be one verse.” That’s when I explain that the Bible is my life verse. It is the story about how the God of Israel, the creator of all, cares enough about me to reach across the millennia to save me from my own destruction. A God who continually strives to restore me to a right relationship with Him. Through his grace he gives me the way to join him in eternal life.
This is the God I want others to know. A God who never gives up on trying to save us from destruction. A God who constantly pursues us even though we may push him away. The infinite God who created the universe is infinitely interested in us to the point of sending his son Jesus to sacrifice his life for us in order to save us. The Bible as a life verse causes me to ponder how far I will go to bring salvation to those around me so they can understand the height and depth of God’s love for the people of this earth.
