Faith With A Plan! Part Two
Are we letting our faith be run by feelings or the framework of unmovable faith? Last week, in part one of “Faith With A Plan",” we learned how to really sit down and start to think about our current relationship with God and with others. We learned how we have to start learning how to be honest with ourselves, and use that honesty to turn our faith into an intentional one. If you need a refresher of last week, click HERE, to review last weeks blog.
This week on “Faith With A Plan! Part Two,” we will see how to turn our honesty with our faith into one that can always be leveling up towards the vivid and deep relationship with God that we all long for. So if you are ready to continue on this journey towards an intentional faith, then press on, my friends!
Step Two: Leveling Up Your Faith
Bible Verse: Proverbs 16:9 - “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”
After we have been baptized into Christ’s family, what is next? Do we think much about what is after that? Sure, attending church, listening to the sermons and lessons, and trying to make better choices is part of it, but is that all? How do we know that we are doing the things that we should be doing? Do we stop and think about our Spiritual condition every few weeks? As we have already learned, we need to be more intentional and committed to God in ALL of our actions and with ALL of our time. But how do we know if we are truly doing that? We have to know the path we are on to fist know if we have gotten off the path. We can’t know if we have gotten off the path, if we haven’t set down and decided what our path in life is.
Questions to ask yourself:
Do we have goals for deepening our relationship with God?
Do we have goals for our Bible study life?
Do we have goals for our prayer life?
Do we have goals with our relationships with all of the church members?
Do we have goals for sharing God’s good news?
These are only some of the things that we can have goals within our Christian lifestyle. How long has it been since you’ve actually sat down to think about these. Have we let the busyness and stresses of life distract us from our main goal in life, which is obtaining that vivid and deep relationship with God? We can’t let busyness be the main distraction for us as we are trying to grow in our relationship with God and with others. Our growth is the progression that needs to be our goal, and I am going to call this progression “leveling up.” We were never meant to stay stagnant in our faith. The real truth of life is this: if we are not working on our faith with God every moment of the day, then we are letting ourselves become part of the world. We are not setting goals because we need to in order to get us into heaven. We are setting goals to help keep our brains centered and ever working on having a deeper relationship with God. Our faith can’t be one that is on again and off again. It needs to be one or the other. We are always supposed to be taking a step further from where we are at, we weren’t meant to stay in one place. So how do we know if we are leveling up? We make plans and goals for the step along the way. For example, instead of saying that you want to just “study God’s Word,” give yourself a vision to go with it. Improve that goal by saying this instead, when I am having “5 deep Bible studies in a week.” See the difference, instead of setting a goal that is hard to tell if you completed or not, if you change the goal to simply giving it a numerical one, then you can know once you have completed it or not. You use the numerical goals to be your starting place, as the goals get too easy to achieve, you increase the number or come up with harder goals. It is an ever growing process. Another way of making the goal setting more fun is by setting rewards for yourself as you achieve harder goals. They could be as simple of rewards as a trip out to eat, getting a new Bible, or even just getting a candy bar from the store. There is nothing wrong with giving yourself rewards along the way as you progress in your faith. Think about the things that would help keep you working on the goal. We need to come up with ways to keep making our faith exciting, but don’t let the rewards become the main reason to set goals, our relationship with God should be rewarding and rejuvenating enough on its own. So don’t take me the wrong way when I say to reward yourself. These are just meant to be fun extras, not the main deal. So as you work on leveling up your faith, remember that our relationship with God should be the main goal for each of us, and that is why we are working on leveling up our faith.
Ideas for Leveling Up Your Faith:
Start every day off with a morning prayer. Pray for your day to be centered around God. Pray for you to not forget Him even for an hour.
Start spending more dedicated time in God’s Word.
Sit down and start setting goals for all of the “Questions to ask yourself” part of this blog, but start small.
After you have set some very easy basic goals to start with, start planning for them in your week. (example: if you want to start praying every morning, then wake up early, or schedule time for it. Another example: if you want to start reaching out to others in your congregation, then pick 3 people to reach out to, and decide what days you will reach out to each one.)
Don’t always pick the same goals to work on. Ask yourself what your weakness are, then pick challenges that make you get out of your comfort zone. (example: do phone calls to fellow members make you nervous? Do it anyways!) Being a Jesus follower is about casting self aside, and putting other first!
Replace all your daily music with hymns or God centered music, keeping God at your center will help remind you of your goals you have set.
Get a bracelet (or multiple) to wear daily to remind yourself of each of your goals. If you want to, then you can start with them on your right wrist, and move them over to your left wrist once you have completed the goal for the day.
Remember it’s okay to celebrate your growth. Find a friend that you can tell about your achievements (or failures, we all don’t do the best every week haha).
Have someone to do weekly challenges with, a friend, church member, or spouse.
Conclusion:
Bible Verse: Proverbs 3:5-6 - “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
Remember that WE are the ones who decide where our “paths” go. Will we Trust in God? Will we give Him our WHOLE heart? Will we lean on Him instead of our “feelings?” Will we make our paths ones that are seeking Him? We have the power to turn our hearts into seeking God or ones that are just seeking the world? Where will we let our hearts end up? Make the goals TODAY! Work on your heart TODAY! Don’t put things off until “tomorrow.” Tomorrow may never come, so work on your heart for God TODAY!
About the Author: My name is Katie, and I’m a Church of Christ Preacher’s wife in Kentucky. I am also a proud homeschool mom to two brilliant boys. I love to craft, and make and bind my own notebooks. I also make a weekly podcast show called “Just Bible No Fluff",” where I skip all of fluffy extras and hop right into a short yet impactful exegetical study of the scripture. My mission and vision in life is this: “To empower women Spiritually by enhancing their skills in deep Bible study, equipping them to effectively teach the Gospel to others, and guiding them in cultivating Spiritual growth beyond the Church building.”