“So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong. Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord. Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many. Make sure that no one is immoral or godless like Esau, who traded his birthright as the firstborn son for a single meal. You know that afterward, when he wanted his father’s blessing, he was rejected. It was too late for repentance, even though he begged with bitter tears.”
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Hebrews‬ ‭12‬:‭12‬-‭17‬ ‭NLT‬‬

A godly life doesn’t simply fall upon us. The author of Hebrews takes us on a tour of the Hall of Faith because it shows us the requirements necessary to live faithfully. Clearly, these people were counted as righteous without generated that righteousness from their own efforts. Only a few of them read as good people on paper. Yet, over the course of their lives, they continued to make choices to hide behind the shield of their faith in God. Rarely was this ever a perfect action. The Bible doesn’t hide this at all. For many, this process included a lifetime of tweaking and fine tuning. This should be good news to us. The bar is set quite low for entry. The hardest thing for most in modernity will be breaking their appetite for instant gratification. But once this is done, we can take great joy in the wide breadth of God’s love. When we refuse to learn from the lessons of those who came before, we hinder our own development. This is ironic considering that it is often done in the interest of efficiency. As the adage goes, “slow and steady wins the race.” For believers, w meat add, “faithful,” to that list. Those who allow God to take them past themselves will always move much more effectively then those who use their own efforts.