Day 13

Therefore

To Start

Spend time in silence waiting for God. Is God already with you? Yes. But You won’t experience Him until you quiet yourself and start waiting.

Pray

Yahweh, reveal Yourself to us as we read Scripture. Widen our sight. Help us to understand just a little of Your mass and height and width and depth.

Read

• Read Hebrews 11:12 & summarize it in your own words.

• Now copy the passage three times.

• Ask God to show you something you’re not seeing.

• “Therefore” means, “for that reason.” Look back at verse 11. What’s the reason Abraham’s offspring were as numerous as the stars?

  Does the answer affect you in any particular way?

Hebrews 11:12

Therefore, from one man—in fact, from one as good as dead—came offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and as innumerable as the grains of sand along the seashore.

From JL

In our Genesis reading yesterday God said to Sarah,

“Is anything impossible for the Lord?”

It was a correction. Sarah (it seems) changed her mind and believed:.

Several hundred years later, the angel Gabriel would declare to another soon-to-be mother—this one young with no husband: “Nothing is impossible for the Lord.” Mary would say in response, “May it happen to me as you have said.”

We read, “Therefore, from one man—in fact, from one as good as dead—came offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and as innumerable as the grains of sand along the seashore,” and we’re struck with the wonder of it. Stars in the sky, sand on the shore, all of it from the most unlikely source… Impossible.

Only the Lord could do a thing like this.

Which is the truth. But not the whole truth.

That phrase “nothing is impossible” crops up another time in Scripture. Here’s Matthew 17:20. Jesus is talking…

“For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Nothing will be impossible for YOU?

We mentioned earlier that the word “therefore” at the beginning of our passage indicates a reason for the words that come next.

If you look at verse 11, you could summarize 11 and 12 together this way: Sarah had faith and for that reason Abraham’s offspring are uncountable.

So… it was Sarah’s faith that made the promise possible?

Yes.

Because faith is partnership.

Faith says, I believe nothing is impossible with God, and in that declaration, faith opens the pipeline that lets the power gush through.

Faith is saying what Mary said, “May it happen to me as you have said.”

No, Sarah didn’t have the power to have a baby. But Sarah had the power to say yes when God offered to give it to her.

When Jesus says, “Nothing will be impossible for you if you have faith,” He’s saying, Faith is the thing that keeps you connected to the power. You have power. It’s your inheritance as a child of God. But you won’t be able to use it if you don’t think it’s real and you don’t think it’s yours.

Supplemental Reading:

Check out this article from NPR. It’s about sand vs stars, yes. But it’s also about understanding scale and quantity. The smaller you get, the more you get. It’s a little mind-bending.

Which Is Greater, The Number Of Sand Grains On Earth Or Stars In The Sky?

In the Comments

I’m interested if our reading in Hebrews 11 is creating any tension in you in the category of human volition and its relationship to divine sovereignty.

Did the people on this list have the ability to choose faith? Or was faith only a gift, something they didn’t have the opportunity to choose against?

I often come to this passage as an example of (in my opinion) the importance of the human “yes.”

What do you think?

I expect a large swath of positions here. Be kind. :)

Godspeed,

JL