INTRODUCTION:

OUR MIND: THE CRUCIAL FACTOR:

    As proverb 4:23 say. it is our mind who determines our outflow of life. It is the mind who control what we are doing. Therefore, our mind must be guarded and not influenced by the pagan world.

There are two things which we must be well controlled:

1. our motivation, our goal , our objective

2. our concept and perspective in life. How we see life.

    We are constantly under the control of this two elements in our mind. It determine everything we do and penetrate to every small part of our life. We need quiet time to evaluate, think and change. Otherwise, we will be controlled by our ungodly mind and do things God not intend us to do. Just take one or two hours every week to think. Take a day's retreat in every long holiday to plan our time.

    One thing is DANGEROUS to us. It is that when we are pressed by our environment. We often say the environment forced me to be busy. It is the fault of our ENVIRONMENT to make me busy. Sure, the environment is pressing, you find more difficulty to handle with so much work falling on you, but it is YOU who determine whether we can be simple, peaceful and not being rushed in our life. It is our distorted mind which is the main cause in our life. Just think, if Jesus were you, what would he do? What lifestyle and work he is engaging? Therefore, never make the excuse to yourself that I am busy, it cannot be changed. It is the main factor that retard your chance of change in your distorted mind. The correct attitude is:

1. Admit to God that the environment is so pressing to me.

2. Ask God what is distorted and sinful in our mind. How can we

changed in our goal and our concept in life.

COMMON SINFUL OBJECTIVE FOR A TEACHER:

1. Self-serving.

    Often, for a ' good teacher ' in appearance, he is well pleased by many students. He is well praised by man. But in reality, there may be many hidden, ugly and sinful goal in his mind that God hates. For example, if one has an objective in winning others praising him as a good teachers, an effective teachers or a diligent teachers, he would use every bit of his time to winning others' praise by working, counselling more students, correcting more exercises, giving more tests .....etc. All these are intended to show that he is a good teacher. The things he do is good but the motive is totally ugly. The most harmful thing is that it drives every bit of his energy to attain that goal and therefore he is a busy teacher. I cannot judge others' motive but I often find that this is the most common sins we teachers often face.

    Just take a minute to think: do you jealous of our colleague when he is well regarded by the students, giving many christmas cards but you receive little? Do you anxious of the public exam. results of your students ? Do you anxious in that because you love the students or because you want to demonstrate to others that I am a good and able teachers? Many feeling we have in facing such things is indeed a good indicator showing what our motive is. If you are busy out of Godly motive. That's fine. But if you are busy out of sinful motive. God does not count your effort. In fact, He hates what you are doing.

It is the testimony of me that I often face with this kind of motive to drive me crazy in doing my job.

2. Satisfaction found in the job and not God

    Many say, I want to find job satisfaction. Many admit that this is right and fine. No, this type of thinking is ungodly. This type of thinking stems from a unbelieving world. Sure, we can EXPERIENCE the satisfaction in doing our job but it should be our objective in life. Our satisfaction can only be found in our God. Anything blocking our desire for our Lord and drawing away our attention is an IDOL. GOD HATES IDOL.

    Just think, do you busy in preparing beautiful notes to the students so that you are satisfied with your work? Are you reluctant to barrow the notes from others because you want your notes is perfect? Are you busy in counselling students because you want to have a sense of significance? Once again, I cannot judge one's motive. But please think and evaluate yourself deeply because what your goal in finding pleasure governs your way of life.

    Just one indicator, do you find satisfaction in studying your Bible, in your quiet time with God or your prayer life to God? Do you like them or as a duty? If you do not enjoy them for a long time, I can surely say that your satisfaction falls on other IDOLS and not God. It is very probable that your busy life is largely due to your relying too much on other things to make you feel satisfied.

3. Material gain:

    Just sincerely ask yourself. Do you perform your work well in order to gain your principal's appreciation? Do you want to show yourself that you are able and you are worthy to be promoted? Are you anxious of the principal's comment? Do you dream to have promotion in your careers? All this may be one of the factor forcing you to busy in your work.

4. Conclusion:

    The motive of ourselves is extremely complex. Many of them can drive us crazy in work. The worst of all, some beautiful reasons can cover our inner motive. Even we ourselves are deceived by many good reasons. (e.g. we often say we are busy in order to be witness of Christ ). I am not going to judge every responsible teachers. But the point what I am making is that be careful of yourself when you think you are not the cause of your busy living style. As I often say, just imagine what would Christ do in my case.

5. Just what would be the way out?

    Be honest to ourselves. Be ready to uncover our inner motive. Get more time to evaluate before God. Admit that many sinful objectives are in our mind. Hate the sinful objective if you find them being in your heart. Never do the right things out of an ugly objective.

    Cultivate a heart for God. Spend time in enjoy being with God. It is the highest priority in your life. If you say I want to be with God but I am busy and have no time, then you are actually putting it in a very low priority. You are blocking your relationship with God with the matters of the world. I can say," you have no remedy ".

DISTORTED CONCEPT:

    If you are careful enough, you will find that many of our value, standard and perspective of life is greatly influenced by the pagan world. Many of the things the world say is beautiful, seems so reasonable and appealing. But remember, no matter how beautiful the things seem to be, one thing is to be sure, the perspective of the worldly view is ALWAYS TEMPORAL AND WITHOUT THE PERSPECTIVE OF GOD.

    The following are just common view we christian teachers often absorb them as truth and apply in our life:

1. Real needs of the students:

    We often say our duty is making them learning more academically, getting a better grades in the examinations and getting a better job etc. But what is the real need of them, a better job or knowing God?

    If you really love them, what is your earnest hope in your mind? Don't fool yourself by saying that I must be a good witness for Christ and so I must at least make them good in their grades. Just be honest, what is your earnest hope for them? If you find that your drive in desiring them good in their grades in your subject is bigger than the drive of wanting them to know God, then you are totally out of the will of God. Your busy in teaching is driven by the worldly motive rather than the Godly one. God hates this. I am not saying that helping the students to get good academic grades is wrong. I just want you to aware whether your perspective in life is temporal.

Remember, a TEMPORAL MIND SETTING can drive your energy away from God.

2. Making our school a good reputated school.

    If you have no eternal perspective, this is totally alright. But if you an eternal being, letting this objective be in our mind is foolish. Remember, everything would be burnt up. Are you willing to spend your time and energy to a building which is to be burnt up? Many unbelievers is inevitably have this kind of goal in their mind because they don't know eternity. They don't know what they are investing is ready to be burnt up.

3. Faithfulness in the job is a good witness for Christ.

    It is absolutely important to be faithful in everything God assigned us to do including our work. But the major error is that we only emphasize this aspect of witnessing but neglect hundreds of other aspects. We are in a unbalanced position. Witnessing for Christ include our character, our love to students, our peace in midst of trouble, our hope for eternity in midst of problems, our confidence in Christ, our desire of God's words, our submission of God's words in daily life, our pleasure in relating God, our joy resulted from knowing God....... most important of all, our confident proclamation of God's words to them. Witnessing God is multi-dimensional. Being a good teacher is just one small aspect of it. Let us be more balanced. Let us witness God by telling them more about the goodness of God, His sweet relationship to me and any other beauty of God.

APPLICATION:

To change our mind, our goal, our perspective in life, we need certain applications:

1. Take more time to talk to God. Let God reveal our sinful areas in our mind. Let God uncover our motive, our goals and our perspective in life. Writing your feeling and your finding is proved to be very helpful.

2. Let us plan our objectives in five years and one year. If you can have a long-term goal and fix yourself in it, you can have a clear direction in your life.

e.g. planning five years to learn how to study Bible skilfully and study half of the N.T. (excluding the Gospels)

e.g. planning five years to learn how to disciple others.

    Then plan and distribute your weekly schedule. If you have some Godly activities you want to have in a week, then you are more determined and without guilty to cut some of the so called 'important' activities in a week. If you do not have Godly reasons to cut and reduce the amount of work in your job, then the reason of cutting the work is unsound and you may be just lazy to face the duty of your work. Therefore, let yourself to plan some Godly schedules that God intend you to do. You must control the time you used and let not the amount of work control what you do in your time.

3. Adjust your standard in your work and to the students:

e.g. adjust your standard in the correction of exercises, your frequency of giving exercises, in giving tests, in preparation of notes, your counselling to your students, your involvement to the students and school or class activities etc. You should discern what kind of work demands you much energy but produce some effects or produce results that are not important in the eternal aspect. Remember, we should have perspective of life different from the unbelievers who are temporal being. We must have perspective much higher and long-term than theirs ).

    Adjust also your time in curch (you must ask God ), your fun time and all your other activities.

4. Create effective teaching methods:

    Have some time to modify your tests to the students, your type of exercises, your planning in the lessons....etc. An effective teacher is always modifying his way of teaching so that he can be more effective and efficient in his work regardness how many years he teaches.

e.g. think ways they can help students to learn but not take you much time.

e.g. think types of tests that can reduce your amount of correction work (of course helpful to the students).........

FINAL REMARKS:

    You are the priest. You are teachers both in academics and in Godly matters. God assign you as a teacher to witness Him in your job. Don't be the irresponsible priest as Malachi 2:1-9. Don't be driven by the environment so that you cannot follow the way of God. (II Timothy 2:1-4 ). God pleases the one who can follow his command with firmness and in concentration. (John 4:31-38). Laborer is shortage in the field. Let you be the laborer of God.

    MAY GOD BLESS YOU IN YOUR WITNESS OF CHRIST