Without Faith It is Impossible to Please God!

“And without faith it is impossible to please God,”

My mind seems to always stop there as if the comma were a period. It’s just that the thought of pleasing God is such a delightful thought!

It is hard for me to imagine that MY faith actually pleases God…but, then there’s the alarming realization that without faith there is absolutely NO WAY to please Him.

And that reality propels me to get faith.

Gotta get faith… and I did, with almost the same frenzy that I used to can tomatoes in the summertime; bushels of ruby red tomatoes that would spoil and fill my kitchen with a horrible stench very quickly. So I scrambled to get them cleaned, blanched and in scalding hot jars.  I filled jars and jars and jars that I would use in spaghetti and soups and stews all year long. But, somehow they never made it to my table like I thought they would. Not what I intended.

Collecting Faith?

And, I have realized it’s not collecting faith to be stored like canned tomatoes in fat Mason jars with lids screwed tightly in place. It’s not storing jar, after jar of faith on a shelf that gives me bragging rights; as if the more I have of it, the better it is. So, every time faith is mentioned, I can brag, “Whew! I got faith! I got jars and jars of faith! Wow!”

It’s not collecting faith or storing faith that pleases God. It’s not the act of memorizing facts that pleases God. It’s not the mere accumulation of knowledge that pleases God.

Valuable

Don’t miss understand me. Faith is valuable…priceless actually! And I want more of it.
But faith is worthless if I lock it in a vault, or hide in a closet so it’s not stolen or broken.

Pleases God

But the kind of faith that pleases God is the kind that is used.
USED, not saved like a commodity!

Faith that is lived out!

• Walked out…when it’s so dark you can’t see the next step much less the road again.
• Trusted when everything in you screams…there’s no use. It’s hopeless.
• Obeyed when it doesn’t make a lick of sense!!!
  • Then repeated…
    Walk it out. Take that baby step. Crawling is ok too!…Trust…Obey… And repeat it again and again until the reward comes.

Simply because you know God is GOOD and you TRUST Him!

Simply because you know the Devil is evil and He lies. God doesn’t!

Are you using your faith!

That’s what pleases God! The active kind. Not the fragile kind that is never touched.

The kind of faith that pleases God …

causes us to trust when we want to panic.
enables us to love when we want to retaliate.
hears His voice above the roar of the crowd…
and obeys…
even when obedience is costly.
Hopes, when it seems hopeless.
Trusts, when its dark.

The kind of faith that pleases God is planted like a seed.

Seeds always have maturation timelines. And, because we don’t know the maturation timeline of God’s promises, we must use our faith to simply…
Wait
Hope
Persist
Reach
Endure

And yes there’s more to the verse.

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews 11:6 NIV

What are you believing God for?

Revival to come to your community?

A lost loved one?

A sick friend?

Your healing?