WITHOUT FAITH
Hebrews 11:6
“Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”
There are words in Scripture that cut through every illusion of spiritual adequacy, and this is one of them. It does not say that without zeal it is difficult to please Him, nor that without knowledge it is unlikely. It says without faith it is impossible. The Holy Spirit leaves no margin for substitutes. Whatever may impress men, whatever may sustain religious machinery, if faith is absent, the thing lacks that which alone answers to God.
This is because faith corresponds to God’s own nature and initiative. Faith is not optimism, nor is it mental assent to a creed. It is the inward response of a heart apprehended by divine revelation. It is the spirit’s movement toward God because God has first made Himself known. Faith is awakened by the unveiling of God in His Son.
“He who comes to God must believe that He is.” The beginning of all spiritual life is the recognition of God’s reality. Not merely that God exists in abstraction, but that He is present, living, active. The tragedy of much religion is that it proceeds as though God were distant, theoretical, almost incidental. Faith brings the soul into conscious dealing with a God who is. It refuses to reduce Him to doctrine alone; it insists upon His immediacy.
But the word goes further: He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. The reward is not material gain, nor the gratification of ambition. The reward is God Himself. To seek Him is to discover that He gives Himself to the one who draws near in faith. There is reciprocity in divine relationship; as faith lays hold of God, God makes Himself known more fully.
Hebrews 11 stands as a testimony to this principle. The men and women named there were not perfect; they were responsive. They acted upon what God revealed. Abraham left because God spoke. Moses endured because he saw Him who is invisible. Their lives were shaped by an unseen Reality that outweighed visible circumstance. Faith made the unseen more substantial than the seen.
This is why faith pleases God. It acknowledges His sufficiency. It declares that His word is trustworthy. It honors Him as faithful. Unbelief, at its root, questions His character. Faith rests upon it. Therefore faith glorifies God, not by loud declaration, but by quiet reliance.
The impossibility of pleasing God without faith is not a threat; it is a disclosure of divine order. God will not be approached on the ground of human merit. He will not be manipulated by works. He seeks that inward trust which opens the heart to His operation. Faith creates the vessel into which He may pour Himself.
And yet faith is tested. It is purified in delay, strengthened in trial, refined through contradiction. Often the reward seems hidden, the promise deferred. But faith persists because it has apprehended something of God’s own faithfulness. It seeks Him, not merely His gifts. It clings to Him when explanations fail.
So the question is not whether we maintain religious appearance, but whether we are living in active trust toward God. Are our decisions shaped by what we see, or by what He has said? Do we calculate according to circumstance, or according to promise?
Without faith it is impossible to please Him. But with faith — even faith as small as a mustard seed — the soul stands upon ground that delights the heart of God. For faith is the answering echo of His own self-revelation, the human spirit responding to divine initiative, the child resting in the Father’s faithfulness.
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Lord God, deliver us from empty profession and awaken in us true faith. Reveal Yourself afresh in Your Son, that our trust may rest not upon feeling or circumstance, but upon Your unchanging character. Strengthen our hearts to seek You diligently, and make our lives a testimony that You are — and that You reward those who draw near in faith. Amen.
BDD
