We study hard using the minds God has gifted us with, knowing that ultimately, what we need is not good grades or a good job, but Jesus. When we do well, we know that our hope is not in our own skills and abilities, but in Jesus. When we do poorly, we rest assured that it is Jesus that saves and satisfies us, not good grades.

A couple of people have mentioned to me recently that I talk a lot about not making schoolwork (among other things) an idol and not much about how to do schoolwork itself to the glory of God.

Some verses that come to mind are in Colossians 3 when Paul is talking about how slaves should obey their masters:

Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. – Colossians 3:22-24

We can glean a couple of things from this passage.  We don’t work as people-pleasers.  Instead we work as Jesus-pleasers.  People may very well be pleased (your teachers, your parents, yourself), but that’s not the goal.  Pleasing Jesus is the goal.  This reminds me of 1 Samuel 16:7:

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Honoring God with schoolwork does NOT mean getting straight A’s or a 4.3 GPA.  That might happen as a result of it, but it is not defined by it.  (Sorry parents!)  That is, God’s glorification is NOT equivalent to your academic success.  God is glorified by the attitude with which you approach schoolwork.  Glorifying God is NOT a performance issue.  It is a heart issue.

Verse 24 gives as the grounds of all of this knowing that we will “receive the inheritance as your reward.”  What is that inheritance?  

“This shall be their inheritance: I am their inheritance: and you shall give them no possession in Israel; I am their possession. – Ezekiel 44:28

An eternity spent enjoying God!  Eternal joy in Jesus is our motivation for work.

How does that work out practically?  A few ways:

1. We do schoolwork for our joy, in GOD.  Our hope is God, not the schoolwork, not the grades, not the approval of parents, not the job, not the money, not the status, not the comfort.  Our hope is far greater and deeper, and lasts far longer.

2. We do schoolwork “serving the Lord Christ.”  Pursuing God and doing work are not mutually exclusive.  Schoolwork is NOT to be discarded, it is to be redeemed.

3. We do schoolwork thankfully.  

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. – Colossians 3:17

One of the guys in my Community Group put it this way: “You don’t deserve an F.  You deserve death.”  We’ve been saved by grace, we’ve been given life by grace, we’ve been allowed to work and learn by grace, and we’ve been given the capacity to do so by grace…

4. We do schoolwork attentively.  You’re learning about God and the things he’s done!  God created an ordered universe, and as we learn about it, we learn about God.  And as another of the guys in my Community Group pointed out, we also learn about man’s depravity (history, government, psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc.) and can use that to learn about our depravity.

Work is obedience that flows out of our love for Jesus.  

-Ben

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. – Romans 1:24-25

What is the “truth about God”?  That he is good, that he is the ultimate satisfaction, that he is not just the ticket to the show… he is the show!

I noticed a few times today how I keep looking for satisfaction in things other than God – music, blogs, CNN, food, wandering around talking to my family, Olympics, Wikipedia, packing, cleaning, etc.  And all of those can be used to glorify and point to God.  But God kept pointing out to me the state of my heart: Jesus wasn’t enough for me, so I kept running to other things.

What are you trying to satisfy yourself with right now?  Olympics or Jesus?

If all else were to disappear right now and it was just you, your Bible, and Jesus, would that be enough?

Can you say with the Psalmist, “I long for your salvation, O Lord, and your law is my delight” (Psalm 119:174)?

Praying that Jesus would satisfy our souls,

-Ben

ps. here’s what God drew me to late this evening:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

- Colossians 1:15-23

Verse 1:
Good evening brethren, let’s go a special direction
Look back, let’s meet a young’n that was born in 87
His parents was so happy, rejoicing at they new blessing
He breathes life, at the same time death without a question
His parents gazed in his eyes, adoring him as he hollers
He got his eyes from his mama, he got his nose from his father
Its crazy how this baby, is so precious but I’m saddened
He got his name from grandfather, his depravity from Adam
That’s how it goes and hey look as he grows
You can see he’s so blind, his eyes seem as they closed
He’s so weak and it shows, he can’t keep from what He knows
Is wrong, he knows it’s bad but dag he wants it though
And all throughout his years, he looks good to his peers
And his parents, and his self but if we could only peer
On the inside, we’d see that from the start it was dark
Until a Savior stepped in and gave Him a new heart, eyes opened!

Hook:
I know I once was blind, Oh Lord but now I see
You sent your Son from above to come and rescue me
He’s the light of the world, maker of you and me
His Spirit shines so bright for all of us to see
Now that my vision’s clear, Oh Lord we sing your praise
And pray that those in the world would turn and seek your face
Father we thank you for eyes to see so we can know you and love you forever
So that we can love you forever (2X)

Verse 2:
Yeah I was blinded in the past, like my mind was in the trash
Incapable of doing good or even finding him the task
Was beyond what I could grasp, my righteousness is rags
So He had to do all the work, by His design you do the math
The math, who get’s the glory, hey who get’s the praise?
Predestined, I was elected, resurrected from the grave
Plus His loved was never based on my past or present state
On anything that I obtained I was a mess but blessed with grace
By grace, I’m in love with Him
He gave me something within
He doesn’t love me cause of me nope He loves me because of Him
No He didn’t have to save and raise me when I was dead
But He dragged me out the morgue, now the praise of His name is spread
He died for all He would save, it’s crazy the Savior bled
Erasing taking my dread, and gave me some grace instead
The kind I wouldn’t resist, I came praise be to Him
And I’m confident if I’m in Him Ima make it to the end with eyes open

Hook:
I know I once was blind, Oh Lord but now I see
You sent your Son from above to come and rescue me
He’s the light of the world, maker of you and me
His Spirit shines so bright for all of us to see
Now that my vision’s clear, Oh Lord we sing your praise
And pray that those in the world would turn and seek your face
Father we thank you for eyes to see so we can know you and love you forever
So that we can love you forever (2X)

Now that my eyes is open, gotta keep that Bible open
Not just so that I can quote Him, I’m hopin that I’ll behold Him
Until I lay in the grave, I’m praying I’ll stay in motion
Gazing with eyes of faith He gave me baby, I’m focused
I’m praying all through my 20’s I’ll see Him in 20/20
Looking at Him till I look like Him almost like His twin He’s
So merciful, His Word is so packed I’m telling many
About the glory of Christ, tryna rep Him with all that’s in me

Hook:
I know I once was blind, Oh Lord but now I see
You sent your Son from above to come and rescue me
He’s the light of the world, maker of you and me
His Spirit shines so bright for all of us to see
Now that my vision’s clear, Oh Lord we sing your praise
And pray that those in the world would turn and seek your face
Father we thank you for eyes to see so we can know you and love you forever
So that we can love you forever (2X)

First John 4:9 warns us NOT to try to define it based on ourselves: “not that we have loved God but that he loved us.”  We do love God and love people, but the Bible says that we can’t use our meager loving to define love.  We are to use God’s love for us and God’s love for himself.

The Ben Hutton paraphrase of 1 John 4:9-10:  “This is the most loving thing ever, and should be an example of how to love: a Father sent his Son on a mission to die, and as part of that death, the Father punished the Son for the sin of many people by pouring out his righteous fury on him.”

God’s chief example of love involved wrath and death.  It wasn’t pretty.  It wasn’t comfortable.  But it was glorious.  The objective fact was that God’s actions were loving.

Too often we rely on our subjective feelings to determine whether actions are loving.  But often, we feel wrong.  Just as our thoughts and our actions need to be sanctified, so do our feelings. And what is most loving might also be what is most painful, and not feel loving at all – especially in the short-term.  Looking back, things are often different.

Back in the day, some of the guys in Crusade liked to throw the term “bricking” around.  It consisted of speaking truth, in love, into each other’s lives.  It often felt, at the moment, like you were getting hit with a brick.  But that’s how it has to happen sometimes.  Life is war.

First John 4:7 is startling:  “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”

Love is distinctly Christian.  Nonchristians “love” each other… but according to the Bible, not really.  There must be something distinct about the Christian way of “loving” that makes it love.  What makes it distinct is that Christian love is not about subjective feeling (though it often includes that), but about objective Fact.

One way to describe God’s love: “his commitment to do everything necessary (most painfully the death of his only Son) to enthrall us with what is most deeply and durably satisfying—namely, himself.”

It works the same for us – we love others by working to “enthrall them with what is most deeply and durably satisfying.”  We love others by pointing them to that which is the greatest good and the greatest joy: God.  We love others by making them happy in God! This is our goal with both Christians and nonchristians – that they would be know God.

Verse 7 says that love comes out of “knowing God”.   To help others know God, we need to know him first.  Love necessarily flows out of knowledge of God.

Verse 12 says, “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” We make up for the fact that nobody has directly seen God’s face by loving them – showing them God!

Verse 10 says, “he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”  The ultimate loving act was God doing what was necessary for us to be with Jesus forever in heaven.  God gave us himself by taking our sin and punishment upon himself.

Why?  So that we would know and enjoy God forever.

Does your definition of love match up?  Are you really loving people?  Christians?  Nonchristians?

-Ben

As far as any eye could see
There was no green. But every tree
Was cinder black, and all the ground
Was grey with ash. The only sound
Was arid wind, like spirits’ ghosts,
Gasping for some living hosts
In which to dwell, as in the days
Of evil men, before the blaze
Of unimaginable fire
Had made the earth a flaming pyre
For God’s omnipotent display
Of holy rage. The dreadful Day
Of God had come. The moon had turned
To blood. The sun no longer burned
Above, but, blazing with desire,
Had flowed into a lake of fire.
The seas and oceans were no more,
And in their place a desert floor
Fell deep to meet the brazen skies,
And silence conquered distant cries.

The Lord stood still above the air.
His mighty arms were moist and bare.
They hung, as weary, by his side
Until the human blood had dried
Upon the sword in his right hand.
He stared across the blackened land
That he had made, and where he died.
His lips were tight, and deep inside,
The mystery of sovereign will
Gave leave, and it began to spill
In tears upon his bloody sword
For one last time.

And then the Lord
Wiped every tear away and turned
To see his bride. Her heart had yearned
Four thousand years for this: His face
Shone like the sun, and every trace
Of wrath was gone. And in her bliss
She heard the Master say, “Watch this:
Come forth all goodness from the ground,
Come forth and let the earth redound
With joy.” And as he spoke, the throne
Of God came down to earth and shone
Like golden crystal full of light,
And banished once for all the night.
And from the throne a stream began
To flow and laugh, and as it ran,
It made a river and a lake,
And everywhere it flowed a wake
Of grass broke on the banks and spread
Like resurrection from the dead.

And in the twinkling of an eye
The saints descended from the sky.

And as I knelt beside the brook
To drink eternal life, I took
A glance across the golden grass,
And saw my dog, old Blackie, fast
As she could come. She leaped the stream—
Almost—and what a happy gleam
Was in her eye.

I knelt to drink,
And knew that I was on the brink
Of endless joy. And everywhere
I turned I saw a wonder there.
A big man running on the lawn:
That’s old John Younge with both legs on.
The blind can see a bird on wing,
The dumb can lift his voice and sing.
The diabetic eats at will,
The coronary runs uphill.
The lame can walk, the deaf can hear,
The cancer-ridden bone is clear.
Arthritic joints are lithe and free,
And every pain has ceased to be.

And every sorrow deep within,
And every trace of lingering sin
Is gone. And all that’s left is joy,
And endless ages to employ
The mind and heart to understand
And love the sovereign Lord who planned
That it should take eternity
To lavish all his grace on me.

O God of wonder, God of might,
Grant us some elevated sight,
Of endless days. And let us see
The joy of what is yet to be.
And may your future make us free,
And guard us by the hope that we,
Within the light of candle four,
Are glorified forevermore.

1. Everyone else to stop sinning in ways that annoy me, inconvenience me, or make me feel like I need to rebuke them or tell them to stop.
2. Everyone else to focus on making me happy, meeting my needs, fixing my problems.

Simple enough, right?  I feel like I’m not too unique here.

Here’s Jesus’ approach: “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” – Mark 10:45

I can’t “give my life as a ransom for many” and atone for sin.  But I can stop looking at myself and start looking at Jesus because of His atonement for sin. And I can serve others, for His glory, as Jesus enabled me and showed me how to do.

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. – 1 Peter 4:10-11

How to really be happy?  Live pointing at, relying on, and hoping in Jesus.

-Ben

It’s easy for me to try to forget this and try to justify myself.  How does it look?  Often it goes like this: I sin, and I feel bad about my sin, so to make myself feel better, I remind myself of myself – of the good things I’ve done, the things I’ve done that should make me feel good about myself.  I caught myself doing this just now… trying to deflect feelings of shame and guilt by reminding myself how super I am and about all the things I do right.  I try to make myself acceptable – in my own eyes, in others’, and in God’s – by appealing to my own works.

So sinful.  So unbiblical.

My righteousness gets me nowhere. Isaiah 64:6 says, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”

Christ’s righteousness is what gets me to heaven.  And it deals with guilt and shame and inadequacy and fear in ways that appealing to my own righteousness was never meant to.

“And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” – 1 Cor 1:30

To deal with sin, we remind ourselves of Jesus, not ourselves.

-Ben

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. – 2 Corinthians 5:21

Jesus took our sin upon Himself, and was punished for it.  He lived a perfect, righteous life, and that is counted to us.  This is called a “double imputation” – our sin is imputed to Christ and His righteousness is mputed to us.  Our sin was punished in Christ, so it doesn’t get punished in us.  His righteousness is given to us, because there’s no way we could live a righteous enough life on our own to get into heaven.

Listen to Isaiah prophesy about the work of Jesus:

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. – Isaiah 53:11

What does this mean for Christians?

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. – Romans 8:1-4

Two things in there:

1. All the righteousness that we will ever need to gain right standing before God is DONE.  You can’t do anything more to earn your salvation, and to try to would be sinful and dishonoring to God.  We are loved, so we obey – not the other way around.  Obedience doesn’t earn us love, it flows out of it.

2. All the condemnation we deserved was put on Jesus, on the Cross, so that we are now NO LONGER under condemnation.  What does that mean?

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died-more than that, who was raised-who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? – Romans 8:31-35

For those who are in Christ Jesus (by faith), the condemnation is GONE and now God is 100% for us.  That God is an infinitely wise, loving, powerful God who know what is good for you FAR BETTER than you ever could.  God is more for you than you could ever be.

How does this ultimately work itself out? What does God know we need most?

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. – 1 Peter 3:18

God is what we need most.  God is the Gospel.  Justification, righteousness, atonement, sanctification, redemption – all of those are good gifts, but not ultimate gifts.  In this case, the Giver is also the Ultimate Gift.

-Ben

”If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.” – Luke 6:32-35

We love and serve not out of disinterested obedience.  Jesus certainly never suggested we do that.  We love and serve for our benefit – our joy – both now and in heaven.

-Ben

In heaven, we will praise God for who He is and what He has done, having seen Him in His glory and Him in His judgment of evil.  Wrath and Love are for our joy because they are for God’s glory.

After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out,
“Hallelujah!
Salvation and glory and power belong to our God,
for his judgments are true and just;
for he has judged the great prostitute
who corrupted the earth with her immorality,
and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.”
Once more they cried out,
“Hallelujah!
The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.”

-Rev. 19:1-3

-Ben