Character of a Christian

Don't allow one failure to take you away from God.

Christians have yet to learn the character of a Christian. We think/hear that once you become a Christian your finances are in order, your debt magically disappears, you get the job you've always wanted, your kids behave, your marriage is perfect, or you'll find the right mate, your car doesn't brake down, perfect health, no car accidents, your never angry/frustrated, your family members live forever. When you put it all together like that it doesn’t sound realistic but yet this is the thinking of most Christians (I can speak for Americans anyway). Without words we make a statement as if to say “We believe God is here to serve us and if we claim Him as our God he should always deliver us and serve us on an as-needed basis.”

What we lack is character. We don’t understand patience, diligence, perseverance, strength, endurance, wisdom..

The Lord revealed this to me through my own little moment of self-pity. I couldn’t understand why it seemed as if I was doing what I knew but yet and still not seeing the results I wanted. Like a little brat, I started to question God’s word and not stand on it. I started to allow my questions to turn into a downward spiral of doubts. That is a slippery pit to try to climb out of on your own. I went into a mini-depression because I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why I kept failing at this.

After my tantrum of about 2 weeks, the Holy Spirit opened up scriptures to me to show me that I was lacking in character (fruit of the spirit). I lacked diligence; I lacked patience, and perseverance. The Holy Spirit took me on a study of those 3 things. I looked up definitions. And without having to search for them, my bible continued to land on scripture related to the subject without my help.

The Holy Spirit was teaching me that I can’t let failure stop me. I must continue because Hebrews 10:6 says He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. So just because it hasn’t happened when I wanted it to if I am diligent the reward WILL come.

I began to look at the Hall of Fame of Faith in Hebrews 11 but particularly 11:32-40. The extent that people went to for believing/trusting in God and yet and still some did not even receive the promise. (Hebrews 11:39)

As I continued reading Hebrews 12 I see the same theme of patience and endurance. And then rebukes saying “ Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” Heb. 12:4 Yes, he just said we haven’t gone through anything for the gospel’s sake and here we are giving up because the job we wanted fell threw. We have to learn how to deal with disappointments even after we’ve prayed. Don’t stop there.

We have to build a character so strong in us that we will not be moved whether we see things change or not. This is the type of character that makes strong soldiers in Christ. Christ is trying to mold us to be undefeatable, unstoppable, victorious champions like him. Champions don’t give up when they see things aren’t going their way. They keep going. It’s okay to analyze the failure just enough to not make the same mistakes, but we mustn’t allow those things to paralyze our trust in God’s word. Do you know how easy it would be to defeat you if everytime something didn’t go your way you retreated! You’d be considered a punk in anybody’s book. We have to build a stamina not to be moved…stand there and fight through the emotions. Emotions lie anyway so let God’s word be true!

God isn’t causing bad things in your life to teach you a lesson, but he is using the things in your life as a lesson and there is a big difference between the two. If you believe that God is causing bad things to happen just to teach you, you will begin to accept what in reality is the enemy’s fiery dart. You won’t fight what you accept. Just as the darkness is separate from the light and cannot co-dwell, so are the roles of God and Satan. Being able to identify one from the other is imperative to your Christian journey. But I digress.

I encourage you too; look up the definitions of patience, perseverance, diligence and endurance. Learn to be undefeatable. Discover the attributes of the elder patrons who gave their life having not gotten their desires. What was it that made them so strong in their faith despite the mishaps of life? We must learn the character of a Christian, learn the character of Christ, learn the character of a Champion.