Scripture: Hebrews 11:11-12 (ESV)
“By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”
I play a lot of fantasy games both as board games and as computer games. There is a trope in fantasy stories where great power is often funneled through a conduit. In the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan these are the Angreal, in the world of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, these are the magic rings and the silmarils. In Harry Potter it is the wands. In each case the items serve as a conduit power, focusing and giving greater strength to the one who uses the item.
In the spiritual world Hebrews 11:11-12 teaches us that faith works kind of like that. It is a kind of conduit by which Sarah received the power to conceive a child. A child that became the forefather of Israel, and ultimately Jesus himself.
Now remember what we said a few weeks ago. Faith is the instrument by which these powerful things. By faith Abel offered the better sacrifice, by faith Noah built the ark, by faith Abraham left his homeland. In each case faith is the conduit of God’s divine action in the lives of his chosen people. In the case of Sarah and Abraham, God overruled the “deadness” of their bodies, and made them fertile again.
Notice that in each case faith was necessary for the action to happen. God used the conduit of faith to accomplish amazing miracles. In fact notice what the Bible says about how faith is necessary in Mark 6:5-6.
Mark 6:5-6 (ESV): “And he (Jesus) could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief.”
Even Jesus was somehow constrained in his miracle working, because of people’s lack of faith.
Now this is a danger area for modern day Christianity. Because people have twisted the reality and preached that miracle healings don’t happen because people lack faith. In other words, if you have been praying to be healed, and you haven’t been healed, then it is because you don’t have enough faith.
That is not what the author of Hebrews intends to teach us here. Faith is not some magical conduit with power in and of itself. Rather faith is the means by which God acts. We are to understand that while faith goes hand in hand with miraculous change, faith is the conduit of the change. God does the miracle, but faith is the instrument.
Think about that…
Prayer:
Lord, thank you for the gift of faith. Thank you for using faith as a conduit to save me. Please strengthen my faith to trust you more and more. Amen.
Spiritual Challenge:
Consider: what do you really believe about how your faith works. What needs to change?