June 24 – Daily Devotional

31 May June 24 – Daily Devotional

A SERIES OF DEVOTIONS BASED ON THE BOOK OF HEBREWS

BY FAITH – PART VII

Hebrews 11:13,  “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth . . . they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.”

“All these people,” Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob lived by faith.  Their faith was not always perfect as Sarah laughed when she overheard the Angel of God tell Abraham she would conceive and give birth to a son.  They did trust God and His promises.  They followed God’s leadership even when what He told them  was difficult to believe such as Abraham, at God’s direction, took Isaac to offer him as a sacrifice to Yahweh.

“They longed for a better country—a heavenly one.”  They walked by faith and not by sight such as Abraham’s answer to his son Isaac, “God will provide.”  Jacob, fleeing for his life, was strengthened by God’s revelation to him of angels ascending and descending the stairway into heaven.  Noah, ridiculed by the wicked people of the world, faithfully built the ark and waited for God to bring His judgement upon them while trusting as God had promised that he and his family would be spared.

God has given you, by the power of His Spirit, through the means of grace, faith in His Son for your journey through this world to know that even if you are tested by life’s challenges to the extent of Job, you will confess “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God;  I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27)

You are a recipient of God’s undeserved love, His forgiveness of your sins through the shed blood of His Son, an heir of heaven, and in faith you bide your time here on this earth until He calls you to be with Him eternally.  “For you to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21)

Prayer:  O Lord, grant me faith in Jesus by which to walk this road of temporal life until You bring me to its end and invite me into Your very presence.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

I’m but a stranger here, Heav’n is my home;

Earth is a desert drear, Heav’n is my home.

Danger and sorrow stand Round me on ev’ry hand;

Heav’n is my fatherland, Heav’n is my home.

What thought the tempest rage, Heav’n is my home;

Short is my pilgrimage, Heav’n is my home;

And time’s wild wintry blast Soon shall be overpast;

I shall reach home at last, Heav’n is my home.

Therefore I murmur not, Heav’n is my home;

Whate’er my earthly lot, Heav’n is my home;

And I shall surely stand There at my Lord’s right hand;

Heav’n is my fatherland, Heav’n is my home.

(LSB 748)