Excerpt from Gaining Approval

We would all like to know that God approves of us but how can we be sure that we are pleasing to Him? When we examine the Bible, and particularly the book of Hebrews, we find that it is impossible to please God without faith. We read, 'Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.' Heb 11:1-4.

The word 'gifts' in this verse is the same word, 'doron', which is used almost exclusively through the New Testament epistles for 'offering'. Faith is not just the positive protestations of highly proactive people. That would mean that God is disengaged from the average person so that the rich just get richer, the strong get stronger, and the poor are cast off. That would be a ludicrous proposition. It would mean that we are only ever the outcome of the advantage or disadvantage that we have experienced through the course of our lives. There would be no divine initiative toward you or me to bring us to the place where we need to be.