One teacher declared, “You remind your children that if they do all right in the dailies, then they’ll have noth ing to fear and no problems or wor ries when the finals come.” I thought at that time how much this is like life itself. As long as we do all right in the dailies, then we’ll have no problem when the finals come. Do you see the spiritual analogy? For the born-again believer, we know that our sins already have been judged on Jesus Christ. That means that no man can rob us of our eter nal salvation. It is forever secure. But we shall stand before the judg ment seat of Christ. At this time it won’t be a case of judging us for sal vation, but rather judging our serv ice. “Every man’s work shall be made manifest.” Just what are we achiev ing in our lifetime? If we haven’t been assiduously a s s ig n in g our hearts to the study of God’s Word, day by day, we’re going to have prob lems when the finals come. This brings to mind the Apostle Paul’s words in the framework of an athlete. In I Corinthian 9:26 and 27, he comments, “I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I not as one who beateth the air, but I keep under my body and bring it under subjection lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway [or dis approved].” That’s exactly the same word as we find here in II Timothy 2:15, only in the negative. Paul said that he wanted to study to show him self approved. In I Corinthians he is saying that he doesn’t want to be come so busy in the affairs of life, even in the preaching of the Gospel, that he would neglect his own spirit ual maturity and development. This ultimately would lead to being dis approved at the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ. There’s a great lesson for us here. When we get through with this life, it’s not going to be how much time we spent work ing at church, or at some other Chris
yielding to temptation is to keep the Word of God treasured in our hearts. We must fill our minds with that which is practical and vital. Lastly, for practical Bible study, look at the thumb and think of the practice of meditation. We should have our minds dwelling continually upon the things of God’s Word. Think of several verses which are most precious; indeed, on this sub ject Joshua 1:8 gives the beautiful exhortation of the Lord to His faith ful servant of old, “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth. But thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein.” Then again there is a most blessed portion of Scripture telling us about the truly contented individ ual from Psalm 1 in that, “His de light is in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night.” Look at those five fingers again: Hearing, Reading, Studying, Memorizing, and Meditating. We are to study to show ourselves approved unto God. How does one become approved unto God? I heard a fellow comment the other day, who was quite disgusted because he felt no one had ever thanked him for any of his duties he had rendered faithfully, “I guess the only place a person can find approval these days is in the dictionary.” Maybe you’ve felt that way sometimes. Thinking it might be interesting to take him at his word, I went to the dictionary and looked it up. Webster says that “approval” is. “examination to deter mine acceptability.” Several weeks ago, we attended an Open House at a school in which one of our children is enrolled. We fol lowed the daily schedule from class room to classroom, listening to the various teachers. We were quite in terested in their observations on their methods of approach and study. They explained their assignments in order to secure acceptable grades. 6
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