After I had been at Westminster Chapel for a year or so I felt drawn to Hebrews 11. One evening, driving Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones to Chipping Norton in the English Cotswolds (where he would be preaching that night), I asked him to give me a good definition of faith – one that would safely carry me through Hebrews 11. We discussed it on the way to Chipping Norton and on the way back to London. We seemed no closer to a definition after some four hours of driving. The next day the phone rang. Almost before I could say “hello” a voice on the other end said, “Believing God. There is your definition”. Dr. Lloyd-Jones then began quoting one verse after another: Abraham “believed God”, Paul said “I believe God” and on and on he went. “I am so excited I think I will use it myself”, he chuckled. But I never looked back. It worked. Beautifully. It became the title of my book on Hebrews 11 a few years later – Believing God.
All those in Hebrews 11 did what they did “by faith”. Not only that; each one of them did what they did because they believed God. They believed what he promised; they believed his Word so much that they acted upon the promise – they obeyed. Faith is what saved them; faith is also what led them to do what they did – they came into their inheritance – turning their world upside down in the process.
God wants you and me to turn our world upside down. But we won’t do it by working things up or imagining what God says; we can only believe and obey what God says. We don’t have to come up with anything new. No. His Word will open the way forward. That is where we begin. With the Bible. Believing the Bible. To believe the Bible is to believe God. To believe God is to follow in the steps of those in Hebrews 11. We are called to do in our day what they did in theirs. We have the same God.
RT
You can read much more about this in my book: Believing God available at a discount for this month.
