- Understand who you are and what you are here to do.
- Being a Student is a Full-Time Job (40 hours a week) .
- If you were to fill out a governmental form and were asked, “What is your occupation?”, what would you place in the blank ________________ ?
- Do you see being a student as your job?
- How many hours constitute a full time job?
- If you were taking 15 hours (in class time per week) this semester, then you should study 25 hours in a Monday through Friday workweek. That’s 5 hours of study a day, just to be an average employee. Of course, if you wanted to be exceptional or just above average you’d have to put in overtime hours. If you do not study an average of 25 hours a week, you are a lazy, slothful, laggard, inactive, and weak person.
- Here’s the formula:
15 hours Class attendance + 25 hours study = average student: Anything less, you are a sluggard.
II. Develop Proper Priorities as a Student
- Personal Relationship With God and the things it takes to keep God first.
Mt. 6:33, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added to you.” Ps 37:4, “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
Mark 12:30-31, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Ex. 20 3-5 The Ten commandments start off like this: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto the any graven image… For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.”
- These are the things it takes to keep God first:
- Faithful & regularly scheduled time of prayer, devotion, Bible study, etc.
- Faithful attendance to the Chi Alpha Celebration Service
- Faithful attendance to a Small Group
- Faithful attendance to church on Sunday
B. Relationships with your Parents and Family
You know that they cannot keep up with you, so you must call them, write them, and keep them up on what’s happening in your life.
Exodus. 20:12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.”
You want a long life? Keep this a high priority. If you get you eye on a girl or guy you might be interested in, tell your parents. Don’t wait until you’re engaged. Keep them up on your life.
C. Class and Study (Job)
Attendance to class and studying for each class is your job. Your dad or mom, who works on a full time job, works no fewer than 40 hours per week. If you do not put in at least that many hours of class attendance and study, you are a lazy student and should be fired.
2 Tim 2:15 “Study to show yourself approved…”
D. Service to God
– Serving God through the family of believers. This is where involvement in Chi Alpha belongs.
– Involvement means: Being on the Praise Team, Leading a Friendship Group, Taking the Discipleship Class, Attending Free Food Friday as a Witness, Working the Evangelism Table, Retreats, Free Food Friday Helper, Chi Alpha.com, Stage Crew, Drama Team, and Special Events. It should be comforting to know that the leadership of Chi Alpha deems your studies a higher priority than these things.
Matt 9:37-38 “Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Matt 5:16 “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”
- What are you doing in service for God?
No one should desire to be an attendee only. Ronnie Hoover calls them “Pew-sitters.” They never do anything for Christ. They just sit on the pew and think they are serving God. No, they are just maintaining their personal relationship with God – priority #1. Here we are actually asking, “What are you doing for God? How are you serving God through His Body of Believers?”
- The campus is where you should Serve.
As a student you have been divinely placed on this mission field of the University. You are here to reach this field of labor for the kingdom of God. The University students, staff, and faculty should be your focus of ministry. If you can find a way to justify not focusing on your current divine placement on this campus now, you will never reach your workplace when you get into the Marketplace. Any group you’re involved with should be for the purpose of reaching students at your divine placement on the campus. For example, the main reason you should be in the Razorback marching band, if you are not a music major, is to influence the band students for Christ.
It would be silly for a man who worked at IBM to race across town weekly to try to host a Bible study at Microsoft Corp never reaching out at his primary placement – IBM. It is equally silly for you to abandon your divine placement of the campus to involve yourself in a ministry that focuses on something other than University students, staff, and faculty. How can you focus on reaching the non campus community through being a Youth Sponsor at a local church, when doing so ties up your available time to reach your divine placement, the University?
- Extracurricular Activities.
Social life, dating, clubs, band, football, part time jobs, choirs, intramurals, video games, web surfing, movies, and even Chi Alpha parties fit in here. As stated earlier, you can make some of these into # 4 priorities by being involved in them to reach others.