For Whom Do We Work?

Colossians 3: 23-24 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the LORD, and not for man. Since you know that you will receive an inherritance from the LORD. It is the LORD Christ you are serving.

I am aware of my battle to work hard in school for the grades and to be the best at whatever it is I am doing. God kindly brought this contradiction to mind: working hard is a God-honoring thing, but what I'm doing is a proud thing. What's the solution here? I think this verse so helpfully states what my motive should be for working hard. I am called to work for the glory of God, not to impress others or myself with my accomplishments, which is working for my glory. And besides, God's rewards are the best anyway! So I am tempted to make my school a me thing where I am commanded to make it a God thing. Having this perspective, it doesn't really matter then if I make the highest grades or do the best. I need not be the best, but rather my best, which is all that God requires.

Just a quick note: I am not saying that healthy competition is wrong, or that high grades aren't something to rejoice in or work for, but I am saying that my primary motive for doing my best should be to bring glory to God by doing what He's called me to do.

Please pray for me that I would have this perspective more often!

A Good Time to Interrupt

As I've started this school year, I am aware of a number of different temptations I have been facing. I am going to take a few posts to talk about some truths I can be applying. Here is just an example of a circumstance and how I so easily sin, and then the truth I will talk about today:

I study hard to be smart and get good grades.
My sister gets a perfect score on a chemistry test, and I miss four.
I feel jealous and then worried that I'm not doing something right.
I feel angry about being who God made me, because that feels stupid, worthless, and perhaps even a little mentally off.
The slow computer that needs rebooting, not once, but twice, takes so much time out of my afternoon that I feel is being spent in such hard effort and deligence already. Life now just feels like one big inconvenience all being directed toward me.
I struggle through an ACT passage and feel angry because I deserve my way.
I know I should apply the gospel now, but I just don't feel like it because that won't make me feel the way I want to feel.
Besides, I don't feel as passionate for the gospel as I sure would like to right now, and I sure don't feel like doing the work to make it apply.

Now, the one big problem with my train of thought is how many times the word "feel" appears in it. I have allowed my wandering, easily distracted soul to tell me all these things about the way it feels about myself and about God, instead of interrupting it and telling it the things that are true about myself and the gospel. I am weak, but God is made strong and powerful in my weaknesses. Because Jesus has died for my sins, I have every reason to be joyful and content, since my one main problem has been cared for. And my focus can then turn off of myself and my failed self-sufficiency and turn toward the perfect sufficiency and grace of my Savior. Then, I don't have to feel bad about the gifts God has given me, and I don't have to feel reliant on myself any longer. Praise God for the gospel!

I know I have a long, long ways to grow in this, so I would strongly appreciate prayers in this area.

Please check back with me next week for my next insight on this issue.