Dec.04.00: Light For The Day - "Faith +" Faith is more clearly expressed in the way people live than in what they claim to believe. ---------------- -- Hebrews 11:1 (NLT) "What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen.  It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.  --------------- To our society faith seems insubstantial: it is persistently holding on to notions that can’t be proven and thus are flimsy and unreal. In Scripture, the reverse is true. Faith is confident expectation that what we cannot see is more solid and real than the material universe. The root of this kind of faith is our conviction that  the universe was formed at God’s command. God has priority over things we can taste and touch and see and feel. God is more real than they are, because God is the source of their existence. The ancients, and believers today, are commended for such faith. When you and I realize that God is the ultimate reality, and act on this conviction,  we have a faith which makes a difference in our life, and will enable us to triumph.  Anything less than conviction translated into action falls short of biblical faith.  -- Lawrence O. Richards ----------------- -- Hebrew 11:13-16; 39-40 ".... 13 All these FAITHFUL ones died without receiving what God had promised them, but they saw it all  from a distance and welcomed the promises of God.  They agreed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 And obviously people who talk like that are  looking forward to a country they can call their own.  15 If they had meant the country they came from,  they would have found a way to go back.  16 But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a heavenly city for them. ........... 39 All of these people we have mentioned received God’s approval because of their faith, yet none of  them received all that God had promised.  40 For God had far better things in mind for us that would also benefit them, for they can’t receive the prize at the end of the race until we finish the race." --------------------- FAITH does not guarantee anyone a life free of stress or pain. Many over the millennia have suffered and even died for their faith. Yet faith won for each the commendation of God. Faith wins even more for you and me. The Old Testament saints looked forward to a salvation they could not understand.  We look back to a salvation assured by Calvary.  And through the Spirit of God we enjoy a relationship with the LORD which can be more real to us than to the Old Testament saints. -- Lawrence O. Richards