Week 1: Believing God for Your Promised Land

In Summary, this week's lessons lay the foundation for what active faith is and how it can be practiced. We learn that there are five motivations for practicing an active, continual FAITH.

Motivations for a Life of Pleasing God:

1. Incomparable Power (Eph 1:19)

2. The Pleasure of God (Heb 11:6a)

3. Reward (Heb 11:6b)

4. God will often act according to our FAITH (Matt 9:29)

5. Our FAITH is credited as righteousness (Romans 4:3)

I don't know about you but I think these are some pretty strong motivators! Most of the issues I am praying about in my personal life could be solved with #1 alone. In your prayer time this week, listen to the issues you address with God and keep track of them in your workbook, or in your prayer journal for those of you who are truly disciplined J. Look at your list and see which issues could be solved or even clarified by the five motivators.

For example, if you see yourself laboring in vein- working out with no inches lost, disciplining children who don't seem to care, silently working behind the scenes at church- and you don't see the benefit or the progress, you are dealing with a Motivation #3 issue. Hebrew 11:6b says, "God rewards those who diligently seek Him." Our job, in FAITH, is to diligently seek God in all that we do so that our work will bring God Glory. Often, we are looking to be rewarded for the wrong reasons. If you learn through this study to have a continual FAITH, then you can be confident that as long as you are seeking God and believing God there is a reward tailor made just for you.

This week has me really excited. I can't wait to read what you think. Please post your thoughts and respond to others. Let's keep the conversation going.