In Hebrews, the author is working with a problem that the church has. That the more they grow in the Lord, the more unbelieving they become.
"12 Behold, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief to depart from the living God; 13 But exhort one another every day, while saying: Today; so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we are made partakers of Christ, as long as we hold firm our endurance to the end, 15 while it is said: If you will hear his voice today, do not harden your hearts, as in provocation. 16 Who were those who, having heard, provoked him? Were not all those who came out of Egypt by the hand of Moses? "Hebrews 3: 12-16
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God says: Do not harden your heart through life; It's not going to be that, when God tells you to do, to believe, do not do it. The problem we see today in the church is that many go to the house of the Lord but do not believe in the same way. Faith is not with the same passion, it is not the same desire; We are comfortable, we stop aspiring, we believe. We go to the house of the Lord, we sing the same chorus, we applaud, and we think that with that we please God; But if we do not do it with faith, it's not like that. God is not going through a list to see who arrived and who did not. What he is looking for is the one who believes, the one who is believing, the one who is waiting for something by faith, the one who, still after the years, still believes and does not need anything else to continue believing.
Do not be so knowledgeable of the Word that you lose faith. There are those who know a lot about theology, but when you look at their results you know that they are not living by faith because there are no great results. Better than being on the list of those who know a lot, is to be in those who believe everything.
The problem that Paul sees is that people are losing confidence and become incredulous at heart; And now when God says something, nothing is caused in his heart. Each time you receive one of these words, if your heart does not jump to aspire for something greater, it is because it is hardened. This word is always aimed at provoking you to believe for something. Yes, before what God does in the life of another, your heart reacts with envy, your heart is hard. But, if when you read this word your heart explodes with faith, it leads you to believe that if others reached it, you can reach it.
God is going to take charge of putting you on the correct list, if you do things by faith.
The problem of the heart that is damaged is by the little confidence we feel in ourselves. In Matthew 25, we see the story of a man who has some servants, and gives each one several talents; One five, another two, and the other one. The one of five, duplicates them; The two, too; But one's, he hides it. When the Lord comes, this last servant says: I know how you are, and I hid it, I was afraid of losing it. The Lord tells him that he should have given it to someone who would do something so that at least he had interests. What did that man who had a talent lack? Confidence in him that the Lord was believing that he could do something with what he had in hand. When the world is in charge of marking your confidence in you, of lowering your self-esteem, of pointing you out; When the world manages to stick in your head, point you out and lower your confidence in yourself, there is no way you can have faith that God can do something with you. This man said: I doubt my abilities; I will not be able to multiply that talent. Thinking like that, you can not have faith.
You love God, but you have little confidence in yourself because the world has pointed you out, people point you out, someone always remembers your yesterday, your past, what happened. You have lost confidence because you lost something in the past; You tried a business, it did not come out, you lost it, and now you do not dare to believe, and with the little bit you have you are not doing anything. You have lost confidence and now your heart has become hard. Why does your heart become hard? Because you are incredulous, because you do not trust yourself. It happens to all of us. Our prejudices make our hearts unbelieving, and they do not give us confidence.
Maybe you do not have confidence in you because of what happened to you in yesterday, or because of the sin you are living, or because of your past failures, or because they have pointed you out and told you that you can not, that you will not achieve it; But, if all those people in Hebrews 11 are on that list, you too can live by faith. The only thing that God is going to tell is your faith. Perhaps you will never be in the standard of religious, of the people of this land, but all God needs is that you create today and not lose confidence, despite your past.
You have been complaining to God about everything you do not have, and today God says to you: You have so many things that you did not have before, but you do not trust either in you or in me, as you trusted before. Although you do not have everything you want, you have more; What you sometimes lack is the confidence you had when you did not have anything; Because, when you did not have anything, you thought you had to trust in God, but now that you have, you think you have to trust what you have or what you do not have; And it is there that the heart is damaged and there is nothing that God tells you that you can make it work because God tells you that you will prosper, and you think: I do not have credit. But who tells you that it depends on your credit? Who tells you that it depends on the bank? If there is no trust in God or in you, there is no faith; But, if today, you have confidence in God and in you, despite what you have lived, nothing will be impossible for you.
The time has come for you to learn to live by faith. Do not use faith to obtain something, but to live. Do not use it to have anything but to live when you get up, when you go to bed, when you go down the road, and in the mighty name of Jesus, one day your name will also appear in the list of the heroes of the faith.
