God Walk a Journey of Faith

God Walk – A Journey of Faith

Our focus for this period is

Diligence

On your journey of faith you will find that in order to have a consistent walk you must give constant attention to your progress. To get sidetracked from the journey, even for a little while, will have long lasting effects. In these devotions over the next few days we will explore the areas of our walk that require diligence.

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Table of Contents

Diligent Seeking:

Diligent obedience:

Diligent Pursuit of the Holy:

Build Your Own Devotions

Diligently Guard Your Heart:

Diligent Service:

Diligent Holiness:

Diligently Pursue Righteousness:

Diligently Pursue Calling:

Diligent Preaching:

Diligent to Teach the Children:

Diligence in Giving:

Diligence in Doing Good:

God Sees Your Diligence:

Diligent Obedience Produces Protection:

Diligence Makes Hope Secure:

Diligence Leads to Favor:

Diligent Seeking:

Hebrews 11:6 - And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

The overwhelming majority of us believe in God – but too few of us who believe in God know the value of seeking him.

Why do we not seek him? It may be that we just don’t care, or don’t believe that he cares. More than likely it is because we do not really believe that he will reward those who earnestly and diligently seek him.

We may see him as the great cosmic force whose interest is in running the universe and he has no time for little ole’ insignificant us. Or we may see him as this giant ogre who is only interested in exacting his vengeance on us. Neither of those views is accurate.

God truly loves us and desires that we would seek him. He will reward, or give benefits, to those who sincerely turn to him and begin to order their life around his will.

God has expressed his will concerning us in Jeremiah 29:11-13. Jeremiah writes this prophesy, “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

God will reward those who earnestly and diligently seek him.

Prayer: Lord, I believe you want to bless me. Grant me the desire to seek you with my whole heart. I am tired of my plans not working out and I am ready to try your plans for me. I seek to know your will that your blessing may be poured out upon me. Amen.

Your Notes:
Diligent obedience:

Deuteronomy 11:13-15 – So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today--to love the LORD your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul-- then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied.

There is order in the design by which God laid out the universe. There are physical laws which are the basis for the school of science called physics. There are moral laws that have to with the way we interact with the earth and its creatures, other humans and with God.Both of these sets of laws regulate our life whether we accept them or not.

An example of that is the law of gravity, as it is called in physics. Whether we believe or accept this law will not affect the outcome if we jump off a ten story building. The effect will be the same, even if we do not believe it will be.

Another example is the affect of not holding others in proper respect. When we mistreat or align another person there is a corresponding affect on our relationship. That is also true in our relationship with God. When we follow his guidance and direction there is a blessing, when we don’t he withholds that blessing.

The moral law is just as affective as the physical laws, but the results are not often as easily discerned. In our example of gravity the results are immediate and dramatic. In the case of violating moral law the effects are just as sure, but not as immediately noticed.

God has promised that if we would be faithful to his law he would give us an abundant harvest in our life. And, as the promise states, “you will eat and be satisfied.”

Prayer: Lord, I tend to want to do things my way, but my way is often in violation of your expressed will. Grant me the grace to be obedient to what you have revealed in your word. Help me to be diligent in obeying you. In Jesus Name Amen.

Your Notes:

Diligent Pursuit of the Holy:

Philippians 3:12-14 – Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

I remember the first time I was impressed by this passage. It was written by one the greatest missionary evangelists this world has ever known. He was responsible for the gospel of Jesus Christ spreading from the Middle East to Asia and then on to Europe. The Apostle Paul has been my hero for decades.

Then I read where he was confessing that he was not perfect, neither was he satisfied with where he was in his walk. When I read that I thought, “What hope do I have if Paul still struggled with his issues?” But as I read on I discovered his secret. Even in the middle of his failures he pressed on toward the prize.

Paul was committed to one thing; forgetting what is behind he was straining toward the prize. That is the secret to finding holiness. We must put our failures and shortcomings behind us and look forward. As long as we are looking back at how we failed to follow through yesterday we will be caught in the web of those failures. We can’t press forward when we are looking back.

We must focus on the future. We know God’s plan for us and that should be our focus. When Paul learned that he was made perfect and complete. Holiness is not about how we were yesterday; it is about which direction we are facing today.

Prayer: Yesterday was a disaster. I started out with the best intentions but somehow along the way I got sidetracked. I lost my focus on the prize and slipped into my old patterns. Father, I ask you today to help me keep focused on Christ and the prize that waits at the end of this journey of faith. Amen.

Your Notes:

Build Your Own Devotions

On these next pages there are a number of areas where we are admonished to pursue diligence. I encourage you to formulate your own devotion on each of them.

Diligent Pursuit of Virtuous Life:

2PE 1:5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.

Write your own devotion:

Diligently Guard Your Heart:

PR 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart,

for it is the wellspring of life.

PR 4:24 Put away perversity from your mouth;

keep corrupt talk far from your lips.

PR 4:25 Let your eyes look straight ahead,

fix your gaze directly before you.

PR 4:26 Make level paths for your feet

and take only ways that are firm.

PR 4:27 Do not swerve to the right or the left;

keep your foot from evil.

Write your own devotion:

Diligent Service:

HEB 6:9 Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case--things that accompany salvation. 10 God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. 11 We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. 12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

John 9:4 - As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

Write your own devotion:

Diligent Holiness:

HEB 12:14 Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. 16 See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. 17 Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears.

Write your own devotion:

Diligently Pursue Righteousness:

2PE 3:14 So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. 15 Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

2PE 3:17 Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.

Write your own devotion:

Diligently Pursue Calling:

2PE 1:10 Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Write your own devotion:

Diligent Preaching:

2TI 4:1 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction.

JUDE 1:3 Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. 4 For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

Write your own devotion:

Diligent to Teach the Children:

DT 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Write your own devotion:

Diligence in Giving:

2 Corinthians 8:7 - But just as you excel in everything--in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us--see that you also excel in this grace of giving.

Write your own devotion:

Diligence in Doing Good:

GAL 6:7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

Write your own devotion:

God Sees Your Diligence:

1CO 15:58 Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

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Diligent Obedience Produces Protection:

Exodus 15:25 - There the LORD made a decree and a law for them, and there he tested them. 26 He said, "If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you."

Write your own devotion:

Diligence Makes Hope Secure:

Write your own devotion:

Diligence Leads to Favor:

PR 10:4 Lazy hands make a man poor,

but diligent hands bring wealth.

PR 13:4 The sluggard craves and gets nothing,

but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.

PR 12:24 Diligent hands will rule,

but laziness ends in slave labor.

Write your own devotion: