Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you and evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Hebrews 3:12 

Today’s passage is a reminder for us to guard the faith that we have in Christ. To believe in Jesus is not just to believe in His existence. To truly believe means that we love Him, trust Him, and surrender our lives to Him. True believing means that we enjoy the presence of God and are energized as we worship Him. When we believe, we are putting God first in everything that we do. Although the world will pull on us and attempt to drag us away from our devotion to Christ, we can choose to stay committed, determined, and loyal in serving Him, even when we fail.

Our passage does something rather remarkable. It equates an unbelieving heart with that of an evil one. We often think of evil as actions done to others that cause them harm. This is certainly part of what evil is however the Bible tells us that in God’s eyes, unbelief is the same as evil. As we look through scripture, we see this same attention and importance placed on faith and how unbelief stifles the activity of God in our lives.

For example, when Jesus was asked to heal, He did so but His response to the people’s desperation is quite telling. Consider Jesus’ words: 

And He answered them and said, “O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to Me!”

                                                                                                                     Mark 9:19 

His indictment on the entire generation was not that of being sinful, although they were, rather He identified them as an unbelieving generation. In a passage dealing with prayer and the certainty that God will do what is right, we see the following statement, “I tell you that He (God) will bring about justice for them (the godly) quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). That is the issue. Do we see a generation being raised up as a people of faith in Jesus or are we living in times that produce unbelief?

This matter of unbelief was also the problem of the disciples. When they attempted to drive out a demon, they were unsuccessful. Jesus identified the problem: 

Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not drive it out?” And He said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; 

                                                                                                       Matthew 17:19-20a 

Again, it was the littleness of their faith. They were given the authority by Christ to drive out demons, yet when not accompanied by faith, they were rendered powerless to do so.

And then there was the time that Jesus returned to His hometown. Scripture tells us that the people “took offense at Him.” What was the issue? We can see it in the following statement: 

And He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief. 

                                                                                         Matthew 13:58 

Jesus did not perform many miracles in His own hometown because of their unbelief. Even the power of God was limited because of the lack of faith on the part of the people.

We need to contrast all of this conversation about a lack of faith with what scripture teaches us about the power of faith. Consider Jesus’ teaching on the subject: 

…if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.                                                           

                                                                                                               Matthew 17:20b

The mustard seed is quite small yet Christ tells us that if our faith even measures up to that, then we will see mountain moving miracles and that nothing will be impossible for those who have such faith in Jesus.

Similarly, Jesus also taught the same thing when it comes to prayer: 

And Jesus answered saying to them, “Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.

                                                                                                                     Mark 11:22-24 

There is tremendous power when we couple prayer with faith. The enemy would love to talk us out of this biblical truth, attempting to explain it away but the words of Christ could not be any clearer. There is power in faith.

Even the very issue of salvation is centered in, you guessed it, believing: 

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 

                                                                                                                     John 3:16-18 

People do not go to heaven because they sin less than others, they go to heaven because they place their trust in Jesus. Likewise, people do not go to hell because they sin more than others rather they forfeit heaven and eternal life with God because the simply, “do not believe.” They possess an evil, unbelieving heart.

And that brings us back to the central theme of our passage. We need to be careful that we have a believing heart that pursues and desires God over all other things. We need to make sure that our number one devotion is to Christ. Yes, we will stumble at times. And yes, we will fail. But that does not have to lead us away from Christ rather those are the times when we need to run to Him. Believing or unbelieving is the issue. Let’s be a people of faith! 

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. 

                                                                                                                 Hebrews 11:6