Believing God for Your Promise Land

I am starting on a new Beth Moore Bible Study and will be keeping notes on my blog. For anyone wishing to join in the study, it is found at https://www.lifeway.com/bg/ .

Five-Statement Pledge of Faith
1. God is who He says He is.
2. God can do what He says He can do.
3. I am who God says I am.
4. I can do all things through Christ.
5. God's word is alive and active in me.
This is our shield of faith. "I'm believing God"

Nothing works like faith. It brings God-ordained dividends, and its absence carries huge costs. Nothing equals the impact of faith, because it invites God to answer with proof.

God is calling us to leave the passive life bred by a past-tense view of faith and to participate in present-active-participle believing.

God exerts an incomparable power in the lives of those who continue believing Him. Nothing on earth compares to the strength God is willing to interject into lives caught in the act of believing. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul likens it to the stunning power God exerted when He raised His Son from the dead!

We do not have a need that exceeds His power!!

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

God requires much of us if we are going to fulfill a divinely ordained destiny. What He is prepared to do in behalf of those who are obedient staggers the imagination.

Sometimes our problem with God is that we don't like the rules. God is all-wise, and His primary purpose in creating humans was to engage them in active relationships. The requirement of faith before we see certain acts of God is one way He enforces engagement.

According to your faith it will be done to you.....
Matthew 9:20-22 "Take heart daughter, your faith has healed you" (12 years of bleeding)
Matthew 9:27-30 He touched their eyes and said "According to you faith will it be done to you" (restored the sight of two blind me)
Matthew 15:28 "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted!" (demon possessed daughter healed)
Matthew 17:14-21 the disciples couldn't heal the boy with seizures "O unbelieving and perverse generation...I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you"

According to your faith it will be done to you...that means the more we believe God, the more we are likely to see and experience His intervening power.

Believing God can really be hard work at times! When external evidences scream to the contrary, we have to exert volitional muscle. Deciding to believe God's Word over our circumstances can be a tremendous exercise of the will at times.

The walk of faith assumes a walk with God. Faith cannot walk alone. Faith on its own changes nothing. Faith's very essence is dependency. Faith is the primary means by which we place our hand in the outstretched hand of God and join Him.

Four motivations for present-active-participle believing in God:
Ephesians 1:19 - incomparably great power for us who believe
Hebrews 11:6a - without faith it is impossible to please God
Hebrews 11:6b - must believe He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him
Matthew 9:29 - According to your faith it will be done to you