Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

When the writer of Hebrews identifies faith as the “conviction of things not seen,” he means that faith is forward-looking—anticipatory. Faith expects and longs for what it does not yet have. This is what we see played out in the lives of the ‘ancestors’ mentioned in this chapter (and in the life of Abraham in particular) who considered themselves “strangers and foreigners on the earth” and who “desired a better country—a heavenly one.” This was the attitude that enabled them to live in such sacrificial obedience. They trusted the promises of God and therefore knew that whatever they gave up in this life would be more than compensated for in the next.