Let's take a look from 1 Corinthians 1:26-30.

²⁶For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. ²⁷But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; ²⁸God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, ²⁹so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. ³⁰And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,


We will see that Paul is telling the Christians in Corinth that they in the eyes of the world are neither wise, powerful nor noble. They are mere common people. But, the fact is God actually choose them instead of the wise, powerful and noble.

They have so much admiration for the world that they act and think like the world, they compete with one another saying who they follow.
Think in your life how you have been like these, how you see how much the world have to offer and you want to be like them. It could be in terms of:
Lifestyle you want (car, big house, rich, must have a degree),
Fashion (the way you dress, the hairstyle you have, the clothes you wear),
Beauty (what looks nice outwardly is more important),
Values (what you think is important = Me, myself and I)

Think it through
Think and reflect on that point, all of us are influenced by this world. The problem is, does God and His word influence us?
How have your life changed since you behave in Jesus? For the past 3 months? For the past week? Are you still like before?

If God's Word is not influencing us in the way we live our lives, then the world is. We either before more Christ-like or we become more Christ-less. There is no middle ground.

Application:
Think, memorize and mediate on this verse:

One of the reason why we see no growth in our Christian life is because we only have the head knowledge, we have lost the skill to think about what we read, it's only in our head and not in our heart, we cannot live it out, it becomes impractical to us. But, it is the most practical word to us, we must put our mind thinking about it.

One application is for us to see how the word of God tell us about how we should purse 'A's in our studies. Will we put in the same effort for work we know that will not be graded? or less graded? or no need to pass up? If we do not, then can we really say we are studying for God? or are we studying for Grades?
I remember once in my poly days i was doing a project, the group wasn't very co-operative so it wasn't well very well, in the midst of planning, one of the group members said that this whole subject will only be graded on 'Pass' / 'Fail', and not by grades. My first thought was "Aiyah, like that simple liao, just do something then we can hand up" But as that thought came in, i was also reminded who i'm studying for and what are my true intention for studying.
May it remind us that to say that we are studying for God is easy, to live it will never be.

Any of you who have thoughts on the application of this verse can comment in this blog and we can try to help one another in applying truths into our lives.