Character

John 1:47-48, “Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and said of him, ‘Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!’ Nathanael said to Him, ‘How do You know me?’ Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.’”

Everywhere I turn the same phrase keeps coming to me. It is that “Character is who you are when you are alone.” For me, if you read my writings you will know that I believe Character is what God is shaping with life. You might also see that I further believe Character has it’s origins within the soul of man as opposed to emotions which largely originate in the flesh or body of man. Thus my fascination with Character as I question God for understanding of the soul.

It is the soul that differentiates man from animal. It is the soul that succumbs to the flesh in sin. Within the soul is where lies, deceit, and guile are born. This is why character, the expression of the soul, is who we are when no one is around. Jesus saw Nathanael alone and judged his soul to be pure and without deceit. How does Christ judge our soul, our character when we are alone? And if not Christ, how do our children or spouses judge our character and soul when we are in the comfort of our home? Thank God for the accountability they represent.

The child can endless pretend to be something they are not to their parents, but a spouse is far more difficult to fool. They are a blessing so that we will rightly judge the character of our soul. Is the person we are a work, or church, or with our friends the same person that sits alone under the fig tree?

Better yet, is our life about improving the outside, or working out our salvation within the soul?

When Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge the change that came in them occurred at the level of the Soul. In came not only the knowledge of deceit, but the willingness to use it for personal gain. In came a murderous heart (soul). Have you ever realized that with very few exceptions murder does not exists in the animal kingdom? The majority of the killing is to eat and for survival. Oh sure dogs and cats kill seemingly out of murder of innocent creatures, but reality is it has been bred into them to kill for others… namely their master. A lion will kill the cubs of a rival, but by and large lying, murder, theft, covetousness, greed are all conditions of character and the soul. The soul knows the truth, and the lack of character causes someone to ignore it.

For me I have done my best to be the person in public that I am in private. I have tried to live by working hard, telling the truth, and doing what I say I am going to do. My honesty is often without tact, but for me today with this focus on Character is the desire to not change who I am in public, but to change who I am alone and in private. To continue in my quest to be like Christ… not to emulate Him on the outside, but to allow my soul and character to be transformed on the inside. 

The Missing Love

2 Peter 1: 5-9, “…faith… moral excellence… knowledge… self-control… perseverance… godliness… brotherly kindness… love. For if these qualities are yours AND INCREASING, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.”

My third book, yet to be finished let alone published is on this very passage of scripture. It is called Growing in Christ and discusses how the Holy Spirit works these character traits into us, in this specific order, and how each previous trait is needed to support the following one. For years I was stuck at the trait of godliness, with no subjective experience to relate it to. But today, at forty-seven years old I am finally getting submerged in the Holy Spirit directed lesson on His love. Never before have things been so spiritually clear. Never before have people seemed so beautifully purposed to me. And I know that if love is a river, my toes are the only thing getting wet at the moment, and for that reason I have an invigorated spiritual desire for more. All this time to think I have been missing love. Why didn't God just bring me straight here? Why did I go through life with as many unloving spiritual guides as loving? Why is love not the ONLY topic of every sermon? This is how big the concept has exploded in my spirit.

Yet I am reminded that to find the missing love we must all first find faith, and then find moral excellence, and then find objective knowledge, and then find self-control, and then learn perseverance, and then experience godliness, and then act in brotherly kindness before we can ever truly walk in love. Wow… I feel I have reached a destination. I feel I have climbed a mountain. I feel the transition. (@Jim)

And as I sit here knowing that at least in my mind my book Growing in Christ is nearing completion, I hear God already speaking the name of my forth book. He said it will be called, “Walking in Christ.” What a lifetime of lesson that is going to be. I can only smile.

Then suddenly my smile turns to wonder… I wonder how many people don’t know they are missing love. Don’t our parent’s teach us how to love, and be loved? Don’t we love our children and our spouses? The answer that I see now in my life is a resounding no. Man’s love fails, while God’s love never fails. More on this to come… 

Love then...

John 14:12, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the work that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.”

My friend Jim Spivey wrote in his blog that he is entering his third half of life, and perhaps the “third half of life” is the place where we shake right and wrong for God’s way. Or where dualism and dichotomy give way to the “third option.” Perhaps the first half of life is us trying to do things our way; the second half being us “trying” to do things God’s way with all those efforts are still contaminated with self, and the third half being that place where we have surrendered all control to allow God to do with us as He pleases. And if God is to do with us as He pleases the undoubtedly that is to fulfill Christ’ new commandment of loving one another as He has loved us. Perhaps the third half of life is walking in the discovery of His love.

It is here, in this place of discovered (that is a VERY intentional word “discovered.”) love that I personally believe the power of God comes to a minister to be a regular part of Christ’ ministry through them. We can taste this power before love, and in the discovery process; but I believe there is a place after discovered love that the power of God is to be walked in. What joy it must bring to not only experience Christ love, but to walk in it with His power effecting the world as we go. 

I think this is what T Austin-Sparks was writing about this when he said, “The thing which we all feel the need of, perhaps more than anything else, the thing which the church of God needs more than anything else: power. The declaration is made by the Lord Himself, ‘Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you... by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.’ If, as is so much the case, we are conscious of powerlessness, of our weakness, and of the weakness of the people of God generally, of the church in this world, it is useless to bemoan the weakness and deplore the lack of power; the need is to inquire why it is, to discover the causes, the reasons, the meaning, for evidently it is not the Lord’s will. It's contrary to His own declared intention for His people.”

Having grown up in the full gospel, charismatic, evangelical side of Christianity I am very familiar with Christians pursuing the power and gifts of God. Sadly, I am equally familiar with what could easily be characterized as a lack of love within those same congregations. If, as T Austin-Sparks suggest, we "inquire why" there is no power will; we find the absence of love? I think this is why Paul when talking about love begins with, “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy going and clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.” Do we have the order of our Christian pursuits backwards?

Love needs to come first… then the gifts. Perhaps this lack of love was what Jesus was referencing in Matthew 7 when He said, “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me…” “Love” is not the answer… to love as Christ loved is. We can concoct all manner and notion of what “love” is, but to know Christ’ love we must be in relationship to Him. Then… after love… I think there is a fullness of Christ. After love I believe there are the “greater works” Christ speaks of. We ask, and nothing happens. Have we asked without first knowing Christ’s love? Are we the embodiment of what James wrote when he said in Chapter 4, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives, so that you may spend it on you pleasures.” All the while knowing that love… Christ’ love… “does not seek its own.”

Selah

Love the Sinner.

John 13:34, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”

St Augustine first said it, then Gandhi repeated it in 1929, but many have heard the saying, “love the sinner, hate the sin.” I personally am on a quest to have a different attitude in my heart. Perhaps that attitude is “love the sinner.” Period, end of story. Or perhaps the attitude is “love the sinner, but have no part in the sin” just as Christ prayed on our behalf in John 17:15, “I do not ask You take them out of the world (away from sinners and sin), but that you keep them from the evil one.”

These days the homosexual agenda is working globally to promote homosexual marriage and a de facto condoning of what the Bible describes as a mortal sin.  And yet if we follow St Augustine, and Gandhi’s teachings of loving the sinner, yet hating the sin, do we love at all in our judgments of their lifestyle? After all, did Christ in his love of the adulterer following in, or include condemnation of her sin as part of his example of love. (John 8:11) To the contrary Jesus dined with the sinner, and only condemned those who in their religious attitudes ignored their own hidden sins to condemn the visible sins of others. (Matt 9:10)

So can we love the sinner as Christ has loved us? Or to we pretend to love, so that we can justify our condemnation rushing to the hate of the sin. Or is Pope Francis showing Christ’ love when he said, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” Who are any of us to judge. My salvation does not depend on anyone other than myself and my relationship to Christ. My reward in heaven is not dependent upon my condemning sin and promoting doctrines of men, but rather on being reflection of Christ out of our relationship and loving one another AS HE LOVED ME.

Paul did write in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, “… Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God… such were some of you…” This is not a message or a crusade for Christianity to march against sin; this is a message of “such were some of you…” It is a message of individual responsibility. Love the sinner, because we are the sinner than Christ has loved.

And in loving others as Christ has loved us, then others encounter this love and they too begin to pursue Him, which in and of itself leads away from the sin.

Perhaps the video below is a little more of what being a disciple of Christ should look like.