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This life-changing 186 page workbook is designed to help the Christian achieve an emotionally rich spiritual life in the presence of God. This book is the result of twenty years of biblical research, thousands of hours spent discipling people, and many years leading seminars and classes in the spiritual life.

The workbook contains 60 readings. It can be completed in as little as 12 weeks if one wishes to do a daily study. However people often want to go much deeper with the study as they delve into the biblical principles referenced. In that case one reading per week will give the group or individual 60 weeks of transforming truths to integrate into their lives. Many people have used this book with great value in private study, small group study or as a follow up tool to our seminars.

Special Workbook Features

Dr. Eckman has done original translations from the Greek New Testament for this workbook. The left hand margin will often include these translated Bible verses to help in your understanding of the Biblical text.

Placed in the left margin throughout the text is a Theological Jargon Box (TJB). Many times, Bible teachers and ministers have a language all their own. This box will take any religious language found in the text and attempt to explain it. The individual will be learning the language of the church, while developing a rich relationship with the Trinity.

Important points in the text are highlighted in bold face type in the left margin.

Chapter Outline

CHAPTER 1 Acceptance and Gratitude

Explore how spiritual growth in the Christian life is directly related to how well we respond to God, the first member of the Trinity, as a Father. Obstacles to spiritual growth often arise from one’s family background. The solution is to participate in God’s family so as to experience an emotionally rich sense of being loved and to have a correspondingly deep response of gratitude.

CHAPTER 2 Acceptance and Worth

Explore how a Christian develops a healthy sense of worth. The chapter will show that a Christian is worth a Son to God. The cross illustrates that at humanity’s worst season and at the time of our moral weakness, Christ died for us. This shows God values us for who we are to Him and not for what we can do for Him, either bad or good. Feeling worthwhile, feeling worth a Son to God, is an essential part of feeling loved.

CHAPTER 3 Acceptance and God the Father

Explore how our acceptance is uniquely linked to each member of the Trinity. The first member of the Trinity is our ultimate and intended Father. He has a deeply emotional attachment to us called “agape love,” and we are to respond to such love with gratitude.

CHAPTER 4 Acceptance and the Son

Explore how salvation is a Person and not a religious system. That person, Jesus, is dedicated to delivering us from our past failures and sin, giving us peace in the present, and securing our future with Him. To appreciate Him adequately we must make certain we do not have an “evil conscience,” an instinctive belief that to feel accepted with God we must add religious works to the work of Christ.

CHAPTER 5 Acceptance and the Holy Spirit

Two payments have been made that should cause the believer to feel accepted: The Son was a payment for sin to the Father, and the Holy Spirit is a permanent down-payment to us signifying God’s intention to finish our salvation. The Holy Spirit also has a primary ministry of reminding us that God is our Heavenly Dad, and He wants to have a principled and affectionate relationship with us.

CHAPTER 6 Acceptance and Trust

Explore how trust plays a central role in the spiritual life. The Trinity functions by trust, and trust brings us into that circle of love. Trust, or faith, has some false forms and one true one; we must know how they differ.

CHAPTER 7 Acceptance and Our Identity

Explore how a Christian shares the same quality of relationship that Jesus has with the Father. This is because we are identified with Christ by being placed in union with Him. Acceptance of this truth gives us the freedom to have an open and heart-warming relationship with the Father. Our relationship does not depend upon what we have done or how we view our past, but our personal friendship is based upon what Christ has done for us and our being viewed as joined to Him.

CHAPTER 8 Acceptance and Moods: Walking by the Spirit

Explore how walking by means of the Spirit addresses the moods and appetites of the flesh. We will note the negative power of this twin threat. We will find having a healthy relationship with the Trinity delivers us from the power of lusts and moods and brings us spiritual resources.

CHAPTER 9 Acceptance and Fruit: Walking by the Spirit

Explore the different ministries the Spirit of God has to us. At the same time, we must recognize how radically different His ministry is to that of the flesh. We are commanded to walk by the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit, to have the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, and to take individual steps into life by the Spirit.

CHAPTER 10 Acceptance and Prayer

Discover how our relationship with God the Father is expanded through prayer. Prayer is based neither on the investment of time nor the multiplication of words. Instead, our prayer life is based on a set of issues we must face daily. These issues determine how we relate to God as a Father and the world about us.

CHAPTER 11 Acceptance and Sin

Explore how we are to deal with the effects of sin and the acts of sin in our lives. Sin affects us internally and affects the Trinity. When we sin, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit each respond differently to us. This makes confession of wrongdoing critically important in our lives.

CHAPTER 12 Acceptance and Service

God the Father could not think of a greater or nobler role for His Son than to send Him on a mission of Rescue. The Son was sent to serve, to suffer, to ascend to Heaven, and to be rewarded by His reign over the universe and the church. We, too, are called to participate in the family business of rescue, and to consciously choose to replicate Christ’s ministry in our lives. We have been sent as daughters and sons of God. We are to choose to serve and to suffer. We will ascend in the rapture, and be rewarded by participating in Christ’s reign. God could not think of a greater or more noble role for us than to participate in Christ’s life pattern. This life pattern gives overall meaning to our lives.

Be sure to get the Becoming What God Intended: Facilitator’s Guide in Hardcopy or Downloadable PDF. This guide aids group leaders in leading your group through the workbooks. Don’t forget one with your workbooks.

Also check out the Becoming What God Intended: Audio CD Series, a 6-CD series of lectures that forms the background for the Becoming What God Intended workbook.

We strongly recommend the What God Intended Courses, our interactive, multimedia-rich, online education course series.

If you have lost your course code, please use the Code Buyback – Course: Becoming What God Intended – Course 1: Foundations.

The course is not preoccupied with what we should know or do but it is occupied with the Biblical process of changing our inner life: our inner world of emotions, imagination, instincts, and desires or appetites. It will describe how God has abandoned humanity to its own insides: its appetites, emotions, and limited and false thinking.

It will go on to show how all of that can be radically changed by understanding our Identity in Christ and how to have a personal relationship with God the Father. In the process it will show us how to change our appetites to godly ones, change our oppressive moods with the fruit of the Spirit, and change our limited selfish thinking to reflect the thoughts of Christ.

The course develops the three core values of Romans: a guilt free environment (chapter 3), a worthwhile relationship (chapter 5), and a new Identity (chapter 6). This will bring a new freshness and innocence into the life of the believer. This course is then followed by “Integrations” and “Applications.”

Course Syllabus

Other Information

This course, along with parts 2 and 3, can be taken for CEUs with the Association of Christian Schools International.

View all materials in the course series, or the next course, Course 2: Integration.

Be sure to get the Becoming What God Intended: A Study for Spiritual Transformation Workbook. The current item is a course built around this workbook.

Be sure to get the Becoming What God Intended: Facilitator’s Guide in Hardcopy or Downloadable PDF. This guide aids group leaders in leading your group through the workbooks. Don’t forget one with your workbooks.

Also check out the Becoming What God Intended: Audio CD Series, a 6-CD series of lectures that forms the background for the Becoming What God Intended workbook.

If you have lost your course code, please use the Code Buyback – Course: Becoming What God Intended – Course 1: Foundations.

If you have lost your course code, please use the Code Buyback – Course: Becoming What God Intended – Course 2: Integrations.

Course Syllabus

Each lesson should be slowly gone through while reading the book Knowing the Heart of the Father by David Eckman.

Lesson 1. This course first addresses the critical issue of human identity. Identity is the instinctive picture we have of ourselves painted across our hearts. This very creative lecture shows that identity controls human relationships, the affairs of nations, activity, and ethics.

Lesson 2. This is an exploration of how Christ has entirely satisfied the Father concerning the issue of our sin. Isaiah 52-53 is a fifteen-line Hebrew poem that presents Christ as a substitute for His own fourteen times. This poem illustrates that propitiation or satisfaction comes from the Father’s profound satisfaction with the Servant’s (His Son) substitutionary work. We have to enter the Father’s satisfaction by faith.

Lesson 3. This examines what it means to live in a worthwhile relationship with people and God. Notice how Lesson 1 dealt with the third core value, Identity, Lesson 2 with the first core value, a guilt free environment, and Lesson 3 deals with worth. This explores how God has treated us in a worthwhile way and how Christian spirituality is an exploration of how well the Father is treating us.

Lesson 4. Hebrews 1-6 is closely examined to show that Christ is superior to the Old Testament system and that He has brought us an acceptance that should set us free and help us walk by faith. This study shows that Christ is superior to seven institutions and realities from the Old Testament.

Lesson 5. This study takes us to the end of Hebrews. It attacks the “Christ plus” mentality that feels to be truly accepted by the Father we must add our works to the work of Christ. It examines the five types of consciences that are in the New Testament and shows how to get rid of an “evil conscience” and how to obtain a good conscience. Finally, it emphasizes that we should not rely on our own efforts but should walk by faith with our New Father, and also accept the shame of our crucified Savior who was rejected by the Jerusalem leaders.

 

Other Information

Together with these lectures, this course will take approximately twenty hours to finish. This course, along with parts 1 and 3, can be taken for CEUs with the Association of Christian Schools International.

View all materials in the course series, the first prerequisite course Course 1: Foundations, or the next course, Course 3: Applications.

Knowing the Heart of the Father is strongly recommended as supplemental reading for this course.

Be sure to get the Becoming What God Intended: A Study for Spiritual Transformation Workbook. The current item is a course built around this workbook.

Be sure to get the Becoming What God Intended: Facilitator’s Guide in Hardcopy or Downloadable PDF. This guide aids group leaders in leading your group through the workbooks. Don’t forget one with your workbooks.

Also check out the Becoming What God Intended: Audio CD Series, a 6-CD series of lectures that forms the background for the Becoming What God Intended workbook.

If you have lost your course code, please use the Code Buyback – Course: Becoming What God Intended – Course 2: Integrations.

If you have lost your course code, please use the Code Buyback – Course: Becoming What God Intended – Course 3: Applications.

Course Syllabus

Paul had a corporate goal for the Christians in Philippi that they would serve one another as Christ who is God served them. Paul also had a personal goal in Philippians 3 that he would not be a legalist or rely on his own moral efforts; instead, he would rely on the life of Christ within him to please God.

Other Information

This four-lesson course should take between 10-15 hours to complete. This course, along with parts 1 and 3, can be taken for CEUs with the Association of Christian Schools International.

View all materials in the course series, or the first prerequisite course Course 1: Foundations.

Be sure to get the Becoming What God Intended: A Study for Spiritual Transformation Workbook. The current item is a course built around this workbook.

Be sure to get the Becoming What God Intended: Facilitator’s Guide in Hardcopy or Downloadable PDF. This guide aids group leaders in leading your group through the workbooks. Don’t forget one with your workbooks.

Also check out the Becoming What God Intended: Audio CD Series, a 6-CD series of lectures that forms the background for the Becoming What God Intended workbook.

If you have lost your course code, please use the Code Buyback – Course: Becoming What God Intended – Course 3: Applications.

The introduction includes clear and detailed descriptions, as well as help to start and lead a small group. In addition to the chapter previews to introduce the chapter material, the reading summaries come in handout format for photocopying as group handouts.

The extensive chapter reviews will be extremely useful for tying together all the material using exercises, thought questions, and mental images to think and talk through. These images are a powerful method for bringing the material alive to the image-centric modern person. Extensive facilitator tips and information on leading a small group are included, plus a group covenant page to photocopy for each group member.

This Facilitator’s Guide also comes as a Downloadable.

Be sure to get the Becoming What God Intended: A Study for Spiritual Transformation Workbook. The current item is the leader’s guide, available to aid group leaders to lead your group through the workbook. Don’t forget to add to your cart with the workbooks.

Also check out the Becoming What God Intended: Audio CD Series, a 6-CD series of lectures that forms the background for the Becoming What God Intended workbook.

We strongly recommend the What God Intended Courses, our interactive, multimedia-rich, online education course series.

As with all of our audio resources, this set is great for listening while traveling or commuting. Listen while you are traveling and take time to consider the concepts.

Be sure to get the Becoming What God Intended: A Study for Spiritual Transformation Workbook. The current CD set forms the background for the workbook and can be studied with the workbook.

Be sure to get the Becoming What God Intended: Facilitator’s Guide in Hardcopy or Downloadable PDF. This guide aids group leaders in leading your group through the workbooks. Don’t forget one with your workbooks.

We strongly recommend the What God Intended Courses, our interactive, multimedia-rich, online education course series.