Hall of Faith Inductees
By Faith Jacob - Hold On to What Matters
Sometimes, we don’t fully appreciate the significance of how someone ends their race until we understand where they have come from. Jacob is an example of an individual who faced challenges and setbacks, but by God’s grace finished well, holding on to what matters.
By faith, hold on to:
1. God’s purpose for your life – in spite of your shortcomings (Gen. 28:10-15)
- “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (cf. Eph. 2:10)
- The Lord will carry out His purposes in our lives, for His glory and our good
- Be confident of this, “that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (cf. Php. 1:6)
Are you living with purpose, glorifying God (cf. 1 Cor. 10:31)? Or are you discouraged on the journey, living without a clear sense of God’s purpose? If so, don’t allow your shortcomings to cause you to lose sight of God’s purpose (cf. 1 John 1:9). The more time you spend with the Lord, the more you will love Him, and the better you will understand who you are and what His purpose is for your life. The Lord is always ready to minister to you (cf. Isa. 40:28-31).
2. God’s grace in your life – in spite of your fears and anxieties (Gen. 32:22-30)
- In the “thick of things,” God will never leave us or forsake us (Dt. 31:6; Heb. 13:5)
- Rather than holding on to God’s grace and reassurance in our lives, too often we default to managing our fears and anxieties in our own “wisdom” and strength (cf. 1 Pt. 5:7)
- God will lovingly do what is necessary to get us to the place where we recognize and rely on His grace
Do you recognize, and are you relying on, God’s undeserved favour in your life? Through Jacob’s story, we can easily identify our own struggles: fear, anxiety, loneliness, vulnerability, exhaustion, and pain. Even the apostle Paul experienced discouragement and fear: “We were harassed at every turn – conflicts on the outside, fears within” (2 Cor. 7:5). What Paul and Jacob came to realize, and what we can experience as well, is that God is ready and willing to offer us a divine gift of grace that is sufficient in the midst of our struggles (cf. 2 Cor. 12:9).
3. God’s future for your life – in spite of it being unseen (Gen. 47:28-48:21)
- “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (cf. Heb. 11:1)
- Genuine faith is to be lived out through our actions (cf. James 2:17)
- Our faith must be both present and future oriented, with our eyes fixed on Jesus (cf. Heb. 12:2; 1 Cor. 15:19)
Are you living with hope and resting in the promises of God for your future? Although we still have shortcomings, the good news is that in Christ, we find forgiveness for our sins, the power to overcome, and a living hope (cf. 1 Pt. 1:3-5).
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