Living By Faith Blog

Need Bible verses for motivation?

I did.  Especially in one area of my life — evangelism.

I had lots of excuses: I’m an introvert — I’m tired — I’m busy.

But I knew my excuses didn’t hold up — because Jesus had called me to make disciples (Matt 28:18-20).

I’m not alone

I would guess that we all have areas in which we lack motivation.

For me it was evangelism.  Maybe for you it’s reading God’s Word, or praying, or giving to the poor, or being part of a church community.

What can we do?

Years ago I would have tried harder — put something in my schedule, ask someone to hold me accountable — just do it.  But when tried that, my obedience wasn’t heart-felt and didn’t last.

But there’s good news.  God does not say obedience comes from trying harder.  God says obedience comes from faith (Rom 1:5; Rom 16:26; Heb 11:8).

Which means that when I’m not motivated there’s something wrong with my faith — there’s promises in God’s Word that I’m not trusting.

So to grow in motivation we need to find verses in the Bible that contain these promises.

Then we need to pray over those promises, thinking deeply about them, until we feel the Holy Spirit strengthening our faith and changing our hearts to we want to obey.

So here’s how God motivated me concerning evangelism.

I came to Jesus as I was, confessing my disobedience, and trusting Him to forgive and change me. 

I repented of my disobedience before Him.  I told Him I lacked motivation, and that I wanted to change.  I asked Him to change me.  I trusted His death to forgive my sin (1Jo 1:9), and His power to change my heart (Luk 18:27).

I trusted that through faith alone in Christ alone I was fully loved, saved, and secured forever.

This is crucial:  I did not need to go out and evangelize first in order to be fully loved, saved, and secured.  I am saved by faith alone in Christ alone (Luk 18:13-14; Rom 4:5).

The moment I look to Jesus and trust Him as Savior, Lord, and Treasure, I can be assured that I am forgiven (Mark 2:5), clothed with Jesus’ perfect righteousness (2Cor 5:21), and that forever God is rejoicing to do me good (Jer 32:40-41).

This is the launching pad for the rocket of obedience.  But the rocket needs powerful fuel — God’s promises.

I found promises in God’s Word that motivate evangelism.

There’s a bunch.

In Mark 1:17 Jesus promises that if we will follow Him, then He will make us become fishers of men.  Notice who does what: our job is to follow Jesus, His job is to make us into fishers of men.

That helped overcome my fear of failure.

In 1Cor 9:22-23 Paul says that when we share the Gospel and some are saved, we will share with them in its blessings — which means their joy in Christ will give us even more joy in Christ.

I want more joy in Christ — so that fired-up my motivation.

In Mark 4:20 Jesus promises that every believer will produce some amount of harvest.  Which means God will use my efforts to bring some lost people to Christ.

More motivation.

In 1Pet 4:14 Peter promises that if I am insulted for Christ’s name, I will experience even more of God’s glory, and in Luke 6:22-23 Jesus promises that if I am persecuted, I should leap for joy because in heaven I will have even more joy in God forever.

This freed me from fearing rejection.

In Matt 28:18-20 Jesus promises that as I pursue evangelism — the One with all authority in heaven and on earth will be with me.

That took away even more of my fear.

I prayed over those promises until my faith strengthened and my motivation grew.

Faith comes through prayer (Mark 9:24) and pondering God’s Word (Rom 10:17).

So I asked God to strengthen my faith in His promises.  Then I set my heart on these promises, and fought to trust what God was saying in them.

This did not happen overnight.  But as I continued, my heart changed.  I felt excited about evangelism, drawn to evangelism, hungry for evangelism.

I asked God to give me wisdom for what I should do.

God has a unique plan for how each of us should pursue evangelism — a plan that fits our job, time, and personality.

So I started asking God what I should do — what steps I should take.

Here’s one that He gave me —

I was working in real estate in the early years of our church plant, and had been involved in a grueling transaction.  I was representing the seller, and a husband-and-wife team in my real estate office was representing the buyer.

There had been lots of difficulties between seller and buyer, but the other agents had worked diligently to keep the deal together, and we had just closed escrow.

One morning as I was praying, I sensed God nudging me to thank this couple by taking them out to lunch.  So as soon as I got to the office, I found them and invited them to lunch.  I was stunned by their response.

They said they had heard I did Bible studies with other agents, and that they were hoping I could study the Bible with them to help answer their questions.

I was blown away, said I’d be glad to, and we went to lunch.

As a result we started meeting at Denny’s for an hour Tuesday afternoons, and in a few weeks they both gave their lives to Christ.

How about you?

What areas of obedience need more motivation?

Don’t rely on will-power.  Find Bible verses for motivation — especially promises — and pray over them until the Holy Spirit stirs your heart so you want to obey.

Let me know what changes this brings about — leave a comment in the box below.  Thanks!

If you know someone who needs more motivation — email this to them using the “share” button below.  Or use the buttons to share it on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

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And here’s some related posts you might find helpful —

• How to Obey God -- Self-Pushing or Spirit-Empowering?
• How the Holy Spirit Enables Us to Obey
• Tchividjian and DeYoung on Obedience -- Can Piper Help?
• Will-power vs. Spirit-power

(Picture by BPLOL at stock.xchng.)