A lot of people have idols and heroes who are not inheriting the promises. We should be sure that those we exalt before our children are people who are inheriting the promises of God. The greatest people you should look up to aren't those who have sold a million records, won the Super Bowl, or stormed Wall Street, but it should be those who are inheriting the promises of God through faith and patience.

A lot of people have idols and heroes who are not inheriting the promises. We should be sure that those we exalt before our children are people who are inheriting the promises of God.

The heroes we talk about and identify should be "heroes of faith." The greatest people you should look up to aren't those who have sold a million records, won the Super Bowl, or stormed Wall Street, but it should be those who are inheriting the promises of God through faith and patience.

What is patience? It means consistency, steadfastness, endurance, longsuffering, not wavering, not staggering and staying with it. Through faith and patience, they inherited the promises.

A lot of people want to pray three times and receive the manifestation of God's promises. They want instant everything. Too many people have this attitude about inheriting the promises of God. They want them instantly, but God's Word says we will receive them through faith and patience.

God rewards the labor that you are doing. He won't overlook it, so stay with what you've been doing. Be diligent as you have been all the way through your life. Keep your eyes on Jesus, and if you're going to follow anyone, follow those who through faith and patience are inheriting the promises, not emulating them as people but emulating their faith. Follow Peter, Paul, David or Joshua in their faith walk as they obeyed God.

There were times when Abraham struggled with how his promised child was going to come. We remember Hagar through whom Ishmael was conceived. We remember Abraham saying that his wife was his sister, which was deception.

Most of all, what we're to remember about Abraham was that he kept on giving glory to God and through faith and patience, he inherited the promise that God had given him. That's the part we're called to follow.

This word diligence in the Greek is "spoude," which means "earnestness, speed, haste, zeal, or carefulness." Webster defines diligence as "steady application in business of any kind; constant effort to accomplish what is undertaken; exertion of body or mind without unnecessary delay or sloth; due attention; doing what is required to be done with earnestness; applying yourself in a steady exertion."

Many people wonder why the promises of God aren't being realized in their life or why they aren't blessed like other people are. They cannot understand the discrepancy between their life and what they see in the Word of God.

It's not because they don't believe God. It's not because they haven't been baptized in the Holy Spirit. It's not because they don't praise in church. It's not because they don't pray or read the Bible.

It's simply diligence that many people lack. They will hit it a lick or two and then slack off. They get fired up and then cool off. Every now and then they get excited spiritually and do the tings spiritually that it takes to be a success. But for lack of diligence they go backward.

It's through diligence that we begin to see the continual results that God intends the Gospel to produce in our lives.