Message Magazine’s Online Devotional for Monday, June 16, 2015
Based Upon Hebrews 11:6
“But without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to Him. For whoever would come near to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists and that He is the rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him [out].” (Hebrews 11:6, AMP).
Remember from yesterday’s devotional thought that faith lays hold of the power and promises of God. It empowers us to accept as actual, literal fact, the things God has promised even when our senses cannot detect them. For example, when God promises that we are forgiven when we confess our sins to Him, faith enjoys a calm assurance that regardless of the number of times we find ourselves needing forgiveness, and regardless of whether or not we “feel” forgiven, we are in fact, because God said so.
Today’s lesson focuses our attention upon another facet of that reality. Were we to create a statement in the positive sense from the text, it would say something like, “If we have saving faith, we can satisfy our holy God! This kind of faith humbly acknowledges the reality of God’s preeminent existence, as well as the blessing of rich rewards to those who follow hard after Him.”
The closing verses of Romans chapter one underscore the fact that the reason people do all sorts of wicked and abominable things is because we do not embrace the creatorship of God. When we fail to embrace that reality, we absolutely cannot worship Him. If we do not embrace His creatorship and cannot worship Him, it means we do not have faith; therefore, we cannot please Him. Did you get that? I said, “When we fail to embrace that reality, we absolutely cannot worship Him. If we do not embrace His creatorship and cannot worship Him, it means we do not have faith; therefore, we cannot please Him.” Those who cannot please Him, cannot see Him in all of His effulgent beauty and live in His presence when Jesus returns with His rewards for the faithful.
So, if you find yourself in the predicament of faithlessness, simply surrender your heart to God right now and ask Him to increase that minuscule measure of faith that He gives all human beings, into the kind of faith that ultimately pleases Him.
