Do Grades Matter?

You bet, if God's doing the grading!

"I was surprised because I had thought that grading was a secular concept, but it’s not! A while back, I was reading Kings and Chronicles for my devotions, and I noticed a recurring phrase that summed up the reign of each king of Judah in Israel. It was either, “and he did right in the sight of the Lord, like his father, David,” or “and he did evil in the sight of the Lord,” or something in between. And I realized that God was grading the king! He set a standard, the life of David, and then He evaluated each king according to the standard, and He summed up His evaluation—gave a grade, if you will—in a phrase."

http://www.hslda.org/docs/hshb/82/hshb8219.asp

In our Bob Jones Bible curriculum, we've learned a bit about gossip from the book of James, chapter 3:5: Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!

And do you know how fires die out? You quit putting wood on them. Hm. Then they quit burning. Next time I want to listen to someone gossip because I want to be her friend, I pray I remember this verse. I've come a long way in shutting up sometimes when it's appropriate, although I'm sure I have a long way to go still before I reach perfection (ahem, when I'm dead and can't make mistakes any more.) Sometimes something from God's Word will strike me as being new and unread, even if I've read it many times before.

I'm working to get a good grade. Luckily I know that I will "pass" because Jesus gave me the crib sheet. But I keep forgetting to put the right answers down on this test we call life. I keep putting my answers down instead, thinking my own thoughts instead of just taking *one stupid minute* to just consider what Jesus would do.

OK, rashness would be next on the list for refinement as well. Don't you love how even a third grade curriculum can convict the heart and teach understanding? Yeah, I know it's because it's a Bible curriculum. But we can all still even learn from the song, "Be Careful Little Eyes What You See." We can learn the principles in the Word of God without getting too complicated; it's putting them into practice that is so difficult.