Godly Words of Encouragement

 (This message was edited by pinoy_celt on 12-24-03 @ 4:35 am EST)

 (This message was edited by pinoy_celt on 03-07-03 @ 3:14 pm EST)

Note: This is the second post of a 3-post series.

Now that we’ve looked at the spiritual side of college academics, let’s look at the spiritual life outside of the college classroom. I’m sure you’ve probably heard or will hear about the importance of time management in college, so that obviously you can balance work and play. But for you and I as believers in Christ, there’s much more to it than that. There’s life management, and then there’s spiritual life management, both of which are crucial. I’m not saying that you should spend so much time in church and bible study that you neglect your bookwork and get poor grades in college. But there are spiritually positive outlets that are available to you after high school that you MUST take advantage of early on (as in first semester, freshman year) when you’re not studying or going to class, which I will discuss in my next post. If you get so wrapped up in something in a semester at college that it distracts you from your daily walk with God, if it’s not academics, then it’s obviously something outside of the classroom, and that something usually involves the spirits of addiction and/or apathy.

The spirit of addiction can encompass most anything that you could spend much of your time on outside of class that is not of God. Again, I don’t want you to get over-spiritual and spend all of your free time at college at a church and not enjoy yourself with friends. I simply want you to see how you can live a fun, godly life outside of classes and avoid that spirit of addiction that played a part in the backsliding of several of my Christian friends at Purdue (in addition to bad decisions they made). That demon can show up in many different ways: wild parties (which is a given on many college campuses; you can look at my post "Party hard---or not"   for more details), drinking, smoking, drugs, and sex. This is nothing new to most of you, I’m sure, but what could take you off guard is the INTENSITY of the work of this spirit in each of these areas on many people, including some Christians. I knew many lukewarm Christians at Purdue who would go to church and talk about witnessing to non-Christians, but they were more interested in talking about the “Christian” parties they were going to on the weekends than about people coming to Christ. They became complacent in their walk with God. Now what does complacency has to do with addiction? If we allow ourselves to become complacent in our walk with God, we’ll start turning our affections toward other things that, although those things (i.e. dating) may not be wrong in and of themselves, will eventually sap our zeal for Christ and the Gospel. And if we lose our passion for Christ, we’ll turn our passion toward something else. A good Christian friend of mine at Purdue once told me that one night, two young female students whom he knew to be Christian asked him for sex. Fortunately, he was strong enough in Christ to refuse, but at many campuses there is an intense spirit of lust accompanying that addiction spirit which can entrap even Christians who aren’t checking themselves with God’s Word everyday. Consequently, these spirits working together can slowly do their thing in a complacent believer and cause him or her to walk into addiction and spiritual bondage if they’re not careful. My best friend in Christ allowed himself to gradually lose his zeal for God after he stepped down from leadership in ministry. He then turned his affection toward a young Christian lady when they were at Purdue and eventually slept with her on a regular basis, but was still in church, “faking it.” That’s why Paul said in KJV Colossians 3:1-3 “If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” God wants passionate followers, not religious hypocrites.

Another common snare at college is the spirit of apathy. It’s very easy after a long, busy and stressful week of studying and tests to just go home and not wanna do anything else. If you do that for several weeks in a row, you could start skipping out on a weekly bible study. It could then snowball into you not going to church one week, then going every other week until you stop going altogether. Fatigue and not handling stress well are only a couple of factors/excuses in a person becoming apathetic; one can get apathetic again because of complacency/laziness. I know a girl from a local bible study who got too comfortable at I.U. during a semester, and ended up going to church only ONCE for the whole semester. ONCE. Where’s the accountability? Where’s the spiritual growth? This is where encouraging one another in the body of Christ becomes so key. It says in NIV Hebrews 3:13, “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.” It’s our responsibility as believers to recognize when yourself or someone else is slowly losing touch with the body of believers, and to encourage him or her to come to that evening bible study after the big exam. We all need encouragement in Christ to keep us going on a daily basis. Why else would I have this forum:)? But also make the conscious effort to get up and go to church and to fellowship in bible study, even if no one is there to encourage you; it’s important. NIV Hebrews 10:23-25 states,

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another.”

Those things are not set up (or at least shouldn’t be set up) to be a drag or just another duty or obligation. Church should be fun. It should be a group of people who love the LORD getting together to worship God and enjoy one another; that’s the gist of our faith. You should feel as if you can just kick off your shoes and relax at a student bible study or worship service; that’s how God would want it to be. It should re-energize you at college, if you put your whole heart into the LORD at church.

Many times the spirits of academia, addiction, and apathy will work together to get you to walk away from God when you’re at college, especially when things seem to get out of control (and that’s a feeling you’ll often have at college, trust me). In my next post, I’ll list practical ways to keep your focus and fire for Christ at college if you choose to go after high school. I simply want to encourage all of you with these things in the hope that you will not only survive in college, but also be a success story for other younger Christians to follow. And not to mention enjoying yourself…in a good way, of course:). God bless


Works Cited



The Holy Bible: King James Version Bible. (Holman Bible Publishers, 2000).

The Holy Bible: New International Version. (The International Bible Society, 1984).