Daily Devotional Sunday 8th March 2020
by William Moody
Habakkuk 2:1–4
2:1 I will take my stand at my watchpost
and station myself on the tower,
and look out to see what he will say to me,
and what I will answer concerning my complaint.
The Righteous Shall Live by His Faith
2 And the LORD answered me:
“Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so he may run who reads it.
3 For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay.
4 “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,
but the righteous shall live by his faith.1Footnotes
[1] 2:4
Or faithfulness (ESV)
Here we have God’s reply to Habakkuk’s second complaint about evil apparently having its way.
God’s people need to turn to His written word to make sense of this evil world and to have faith in it (v2). They need to wait for God‘s time to reveal His truth and to fulfil His purposes (v3).
Waiting is not easy and waiting for difficult situations to change and our prayers to be answered is not easy. We can only wait with peace and hope through dwelling on God’s word.
God speaks of two ways here (v4); there is the way of pride which thinks it knows better than God and even judges God, and then there is the way of faith.
This part of the verse, ‘the righteous shall live by faith’, is quoted several times in the New Testament.
In Romans 1 v17 Paul uses the phrase to teach that being right with God comes through faith in Christ.
In Galatians 3 v11 Paul again uses this phrase, this time to encourage people to trust in God’s mercy in Christ and not to rely on keeping the law.
In Hebrews 10 v38 the phrase is used to encourage God’s people to persevere in trials. Be honest before God, are you living by faith?
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