Completed faith and the Promise

FAITH IS THE SUPERNATURAL ACTIVITY OF BRINGING TO PASS GOD’S CREATIVE PURPOSE.
FATHER PURPOSES, JESUS SPEAKS, HOLY SPIRIT ACTS.

The Key point that Paul wants to make in the concluding chapters from Hebrews chapter ten through to chapter thirteen is the difference between Old Covenant faith and New Covenant faith. Faith is a heart decision that releases God’s power. The capacity of the faith heroes of chapter 11, to endure suffering and death instead of escape because they trusted in the eternal goodness of God presupposes a relationship to that unseen world – that world of faith. Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and others all occupied that world. They heard God speak to them in their hearts, the place of communication where we can hear from God (Romans 10:17).

Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.

Paul listed the testimonies of those who were the forebears of those in the Hebrew church to encourage them to be faithful to God, through their own sufferings, and to embrace the new and powerful kind of faith, the faith of God himself through Jesus. Old Covenant faith was empowered by obedience to God’s word. New Covenant faith is empowered by receiving God’s faith and love. (Galatians 5:6)

Hebrews 11:39 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the Promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect (complete) apart from us.

Hebrews 12:1. Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,
Background and Key Points

Paul writes to the Hebrew church to encourage them to continue confidently in their New Covenant faith. Many of them had become discouraged because of the trials they were going through and there was a crisis of faith in the life of the church community. They had already experienced adversity, humiliation, loss of property, and imprisonment. They were told to not cast away their confidence for it held great reward, and they were told to embrace the will of God and to receive The Promise Hebrews 10:32-36.
Some had stopped gathering together in fellowship and some had given up on grace in neglecting the great salvation they had been given through Jesus. Some had let attitudes of bitterness creep in. Paul goes to great pains to explain the difference between the Old Testament promises, and the New Testament PROMISE, summed up in the exchanged life of Jesus.

Acts 1:4 … wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now…

Each individual in the New Covenant can receive God’s gift of completed faith