February 8

All these people died in faith, without having received the things they were promised. However, they saw them and welcomed them from afar. And they acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. — Heb 11:13 BSB

When death came, it didn’t rob them of their faith. They held on in death to every truth they had embraced in life. It’s in death that the gospel becomes such a blessing, held by a believing hand. What would we do on a dying bed, with our sins glaring at us in all their dreadful reality, accused by Satan, condemned by our conscience, terrified by God’s holy law, and faced with an angry God? What hope would we have if, in that moment, all we could see was a God who is a consuming fire, and all we had was the bitter memory of our sins tormenting us? O, if ever faith is needed, it is needed then! If ever the gospel is needed, it is needed then! If ever Christ is needed, He is needed then!

If you truly know what faith is, and your faith has embraced the Son of God, and love has worked through that faith, making Christ precious to your soul, that faith will not fail in the hour of death. False faith will crumble, but the faith of God’s elect will hold you through the valley of the shadow of death and carry you safely to the shore where faith becomes sight, hope becomes fulfillment, and love remains in its fullest expression.