Faith Directed People’s Lives

11 Faith assures us of things we expect and convinces us of the existence of things we cannot see. ² God accepted our ancestors because of their faith.

³ Faith convinces us that God created the world through his word. This means what can be seen was made by something that could not be seen.

⁸ Faith led Abraham to obey when God called him to go to a place that he would receive as an inheritance. Abraham left his own country without knowing where he was going.

⁹ Faith led Abraham to live as a foreigner in the country that God had promised him. He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who received the same promise from God. ¹⁰ Abraham was waiting for the city that God had designed and built, the city with permanent foundations.

¹¹ Faith enabled Abraham to become a father, even though he was old and Sarah had never been able to have children. Abraham trusted that God would keep his promise. ¹² Abraham was as good as dead. Yet, from this man came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the grains of sand on the seashore.

¹³ All these people died having faith. They didn’t receive the things that God had promised them, but they saw these things coming in the distant future and rejoiced. They acknowledged that they were living as strangers with no permanent home on earth. ¹⁴ Those who say such things make it clear that they are looking for their own country. ¹⁵ If they had been thinking about the country that they had left, they could have found a way to go back. ¹⁶ Instead, these men were longing for a better country—a heavenly country. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God. He has prepared a city for them.