February 20, 2026
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Job & Hebrews? Here’s today’s reading:
Hebrews 11 (NIV)
Faith in Action
1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.
3 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.……Continue Reading
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. A powerful chapter filled with examples of great faith, and what happened when people followed God without question and trusted in His plan even when it did not makes sense to them. These people were faithful even before the coming of Jesus, before the new covenant, and still they knew God and continued to trust Him through some extraordinary circumstances. We are blessed to have these great examples of men and women of faith, but even better we have Jesus! We have the promise that He is with us, His Holy Spirit power is on us, and when we face a difficult times we have faith that He will never leave!
Hebrews 11
“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
https://bible.com/bible/111/heb.11.6.NIV
Reading this chapter, the one that always spoke volumes to me, was Abraham willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac. And instead of God, allowing Abraham to sacrifice his son, God gave Abraham a nation from the descendants of Issac.
Going through life with different battles no matter what they are. Your faith will increase. You could be laying in a hospital being told that the procedure they just performed on you, your heart stopped, but we’re gonna try it again in another couple of days. What are you gonna do with that thought? Quite the opposite of what the world thinks. You could almost get excited about what God has in store for you as the trials get deeper and deeper. Birthdays as a kid, you knew you were gonna get gifts and special stuff, but some things would be a surprise so with the anticipation, you looked forward to what was coming. Faith is the same. Faith is confidence based on past experience that God will pour out new and great surprises that will be ours.
I will add. The gifts might not come in this lifetime. But eternal.
“If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.”
I like this bit in the middle about how we should not be looking back to our previous lives, but always looking forward to the promises of God through faith. Looking back only demonstrates our lack of faith that God truly is superior, and that we secretly still want what we used to have.
Hebrews 11 . Faith is needed for what we can’t see and can’t touch. So many examples in the Old Testament about men with great faith. Noah trusted God and did what had been commanded of him even though he suffered rejection from others but he became heir of righteousness. Abraham believed the covenant God made with him, he trusted God enough to go to a land he was unfamiliar with, he was willing to sacrifice his own son, so many other examples of great faith. God doesn’t promise us we won’t suffer in this life as so many others have, but he does promise our faith will bring us closer to him, he is in control and we have to trust him.
Faith is such an essential part of the Christian life. So much of who God is, what He does, what He promises, what He declares and what He commands goes against our senses. And that is where faith takes over to live and think like God would have us even when our flesh doesn’t like it or understand it. Now faith is not opposed to reason, but it is reasonable in itself and faith also believes beyond what reason says. And what good examples are given here to show us in practical terms how faith played out in these people’s lives so when we face similar things we can know what the path of faith is. May we all learn to believe God more and allow our lives to be transformed by it.
It’s encouraging to read about the strong faith God’s people had long ago; we can see what faith looks like from their actions. They did not receive the things that were ultimately promised; they only believed that they would so they looked forward to them knowing it would happen someday. So for us too, our belief in God comes with the knowledge that he exists and the desire to earnestly seek him. When we are going through difficult times, let us remember that God has prepared a place for us that is so spectacular that it can’t be described with words. So our present sufferings can’t be compared with the glory that will be revealed – Romans 8:18. And God will wipe every tear from our eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain – Revelation 21:4. Despite our sufferings, we can find hope in the fact that we have so much to look forward to!
Hebrews 11
“Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
Hebrews 11
“And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.”
Hebrews 11:39-40 NKJV
I couldn’t help but think of Romans 1:17 “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.””
making the connection between the faith of those OT saints to faith in Jesus. It was and is always by faith.
I also thought about all the physical suffering that people endured for their faith, so often we interpret physical suffering as a sign of discipline or disfavor from God, or a deterrent from a path we are on. Apparently sometimes the path God is directing us down entails suffering, intentionally. Like the other chapters we are in, in Job.