Hebrews 11: Flawed but FaithfulSample

Faith: An Internal Conviction and an External Action

Faith isn’t a feeling—it’s a force. Hebrews 11 isn’t just a list of thinkers; it’s a battlefield report of believers who acted on what they believed. Faith is worthless unless the object of faith is faithful—and only the God of the Bible is worth that kind of trust.

When our kids were little, I’d stand in a pool and ask them to jump. “Do you trust your dad?” I’d ask. If the answer was yes, the next move was simple: jump. That’s what faith looks like—trust that leads to action.

Christian philosopher Søren Kierkegaard called it the “leap of faith,” to prove “that genuine faith involves not intellectual certainty but risk or a leap of faith by which one commits one’s whole being without certainties.” (1)

Not certainty, but courage. Not comfort, but commitment.

Sometimes faith waits. Sometimes faith moves. But real faith is both internal conviction and external obedience. God sees the heart, but the world sees the fruit. Hebrews 11 is full of people whose faith showed up in action—Noah built, Abraham moved, Moses confronted, Rahab risked, and David fought. They didn’t just believe; they obeyed.

Faith doesn’t sit back and call it trust. It builds arks, crosses rivers, leads people, and faces giants. It’s not just what you believe—it’s what you do. Not just how you feel—but how you live.

God doesn’t just see faith—He tests it. So don’t just claim belief. Live it. Hebrews 11 proves real faith walks, risks, and obeys.

The question isn’t “Do you believe?” It’s “Does your life show that belief?”

(1)Donald K. McKim, The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014), 274.