(upbeat music) - An email question comes in to us from the West Coast. Hello, Pastor John, my name is Nathan, and I'm a college student in the Bay Area, California. In my first year of college, I found your sermons and books quite helpful on the journey for joy. Thinking back to your early days at Wheaton College and your annual involvement at the Passion Conferences, what advice would you give to a college student today?

- Well, I wrote down, I jotted down notes on seven pieces of advice, and there could have been a lot more, but I know these podcasts are supposed to be manageable. Number one, love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. It is the first and the great commandment.

That is, use your mind, your college-educated mind, to feed the fires of the heart with the fuel of truth. Let everything you study function as a means of inflaming the heart. Put all your intellectual and physical effort into guarding and fueling your heart. Never give in to the emotionalism, which neglects thinking, or the intellectualism, which neglects the heart.

Loving God with the heart is the great essence of why the universe was created. Treasuring God over all things. That's what loving God means. The mind and the body, when it says love God with all the heart and the mind and the body, the mind and the body are the servants of the heart.

And then the passions of the heart become visible through the mind and the body. That's number one. Number two, the second commandment is like it. You should love your neighbor as yourself. Be a servant in college, not a self-preoccupied, self-exalting egoist. If you wanna be happy, want others to be happy as much.

That's what love your neighbor as yourself means. If you want to make good grades, want others to make good grades. If you need help with math, give Jim, give Jill help with English. If you want to be in a home for Thanksgiving, help someone else be in a home for Thanksgiving.

Loving your neighbor as you love yourself doesn't start after college. Number three, be saturated with the Bible. 10 minutes a day will not cut it in this world. This is the very word of God. Read it, meditate on it, memorize large portions of it. I didn't hear anyone recite from memory a paragraph of the Bible until I was 28 years old.

I only heard verses, never. 28 years in the church, I never heard a paragraph of the Bible recited from memory and the effect it had on me. When Art Lewis recited Matthew 6, 25 to 33, was paradigm changing in my life. Memorized chapters of the Bible are important. Memorize chapters, memorize whole books, memorize the Sermon on the Mount, memorize particular Psalms.

I doubt that anyone will be an effective Christian standing against the culture and for the culture in our day without much Bible memory. Number four, be done with all vainglory, self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and cast yourself daily on the help of the Lord to help you with everything, everything. Jesus said, "Without me, you can do nothing." Nothing.

Believe that, believe that. Make it part of who you are. I can do nothing without Jesus. And then turn to Proverbs 3, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don't rely on your own understanding. In all your ways, every one of them, every hour, every minute, in all your ways, acknowledge Him, heal, make your paths straight.

So turn every hour to God afresh. Turn to Him afresh and pray, pray, pray for His supply of strength and wisdom and grace to do everything you do. You're not your own. You live in the strength of another. He bought you for this, so learn to do this, namely, whoever speaks as the oracles of God, whoever serves, that's us at every minute, whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies in order that in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

To Him belong glory forever and ever. So pray, pray, pray, and be done with all moment by moment self-sufficiency and be utterly dependent on God. Number five, belong to a Bible-saturated, Christ-exalting, God-centered church that preaches the whole counsel of God. And be connected there with God's people. Don't wait 'til after college to be a mature, responsible church member.

Break the mold of late adolescents who think that life is just play and school. It's not. Life is responsible membership in a local church relating to people of all kinds and all ages. So grow up, break the mold of those around you and grow up years ahead of them.

Number six, guard yourself from craving what the world craves. If you find that hanging out with unbelievers is making you love what they love, rather than helping them love what you love, the one you love, back off and fill yourself with love to truth and to God some other way.

Same with media. If the computer, the phone, the tablet is making you crave what is destructive to your soul, lay it down. Cut off your hand, tear out your eye, do what you have to do to be radically devoted to Jesus and His holiness. And the last thing I would say is test all things by the scriptures.

You have one life to live and it is not a good thing to experiment with it. What will make life work? What will make my eternity happy? God did not give you life to experiment with. He gave you life and He gave you a book. God has spoken. It's not a matter of experimentation, it's a matter of application of God's word to everything.

He knows all things. He knows what will make you happy in the long run. He knows what will make your life count for the here and now. So trust Him, know His word, test all things. Beautiful, thank you, Pastor John. And we have a number of other resources for students at our site.

Go to DesiringGod.org and type student in the search bar at the top. And if you have a concise and specific question for Pastor John, like Nathan did today, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn and look for the button that says Submit a Question. You can also easily send us a question through our free mobile apps as well.

We're gonna be back tomorrow to talk about the street value of living by propositional truth in a post-propositional world. I'm your host Tony Rake, you'll see you tomorrow. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)