Character
CHARACTER
Is Forgiveness the Best We Can Expect?
Romans 6:1-7
Many Christians do not expect anything beyond repeated forgiveness for constantly repeated sins. They do not expect victory over sins. Thus in Christianity the most beautiful thing, namely the forgiving grace of God, is turned into the most baneful, for it actually turns out to be something that encourages evil. What a cross that must be on the heart of God! And what a travesty it is on our Christian faith!
This expectancy of constant forgiveness for constantly repeated sin is weakening to character, and is one reason for so much weak character within the Christian church. Under this idea, life turns flabby.
Victorious Living
(Week 10, Wednesday)
Don’t Worry About Your Reputation
Matthew 5:11; Luke 6:22; 1 Corinthians 4:13; Philippians 2:5-11
One who is living victoriously has gained victory over nervous concern about reputation. You don’t have look after it. Look after your character and your reputation can look after itself.
Victorious Living
(Week 32, Saturday)
How God Reveals God
Psalm 19:1-6; Hebrews 1:10-12; 2:6-9
The highest thing in our moral universe is moral character. If God can be found anywhere, it ought to be here. The highest illustration of moral character ever seen on our planet is Christ. If God can be found anywhere, it ought to be in the highest thing in our moral universe—the character of Christ. How could God show us the divine character except through perfect a moral character?
The character of God matters. For what God is like we must be like; God’s character determines ours. Just what is God like in character? I look up through nature, and I come to the conclusion that God is law. I am grateful for that, but I want something beyond law. I am not a subject asking for a law; I am a child asking for a Parent. Nature cannot tell me of my Parent, not clearly. Nor could the perfect revelation come through prophets or teachers, for the revelation, in going through them, becomes limited, sometimes distorted, because of the human medium. Nor could the revelation come perfectly through a book, for literature cannot rise higher than life; the life that surrounds the literature puts content into the literature. So the book would be pulled to the level of our highest experience. The only complete way of revelation is through a Life, a Character who would show us what God’s character is like. That Character is Christ—the human life of God, that part of God we have been able to see. The Bible, then, is not the revelation of God; it is the inspired record of the revelation. The revelation is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. Is God then Christlike? He is! I can say nothing higher. I can be content with nothing less.
Abundant Living
(Week 3, Thursday)
General Guidance through the Revelation in Christ
John 13:15; 14:6-9; Peter 2:21
God gives general guidance through the character and person of Christ. Christ has revealed to us the nature of God, has shown us what God is like; the Lord has lifted up into bold relief the laws that underlie our moral universe, and the laws that underlie our own spiritual, intellectual, and physical beings. In short, God has revealed to us the nature of Reality. Then Christ is our “general guidance.” If we want to live according to the nature of Reality, then we must live according to Christ.
Abundant Living
(Week 37, Wednesday)
Witnessing before Dull Ignorance
Acts 3:12-21; 17:22-34; Romans 10:1-4; 1 Timothy 1:12-15
Grasp the truth in these words: “We triumph even in our troubles, knowing that trouble produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Rom 5:3-4, Moffatt). Note the steps: trouble, endurance, character, hope. The hope is based on the solid reality of tested character, and verse 5 adds: “a hope which never disappoints us.” With a hope based on that solid reality, we can wait, for that hope never, never disappoints us.
Abundant Living
(Week 52, Wednesday)
The Christian Way Is Sense
James 3:13-18
The real Christian is the most universalized person on earth, the most natural. A great many people think they have to be less Christian to be more universal. That is a mistake. The more Christian you are, the more universal you are. You are at home in everything, everywhere except in one thing—evil. For in evil, life turns unnatural and lives against itself.
The Way
(Week 6, Saturday)
Hebrews 12:1-3
One greater than the commandments is here. Our code is not a commandment but a Character.
The Way
(Week 8, Wednesday)
Christianize Your Relationships
Acts 16:14-15; 1 Timothy 3:12-13
[Your] daily occupation can be the extension of your spiritual life, your spiritual life become incarnate in material things. The head of a great foundry told me that the defects of character in the individual workman sooner or later become revealed in the castings. If the character goes wrong, the casting goes wrong. The opposite of that can be true. Your Christian character can be registered in the work you are doing. God and we make people and things in our own image.
The Way
(Week 12, Tuesday)
Going Where We Are Pushed
Philippians 3:7-14
Inner division produces indecision, and indecision produces weakness of character.
. . . Jesus said to the disciples: “You have a saying, have you not, ‘Four months yet, then harvest’?” (John 4:35 Moffatt). In other words, “There is plenty of time—four months yet—then harvest.” Then he added: “The fields are right for harvesting!”—now. He was correcting the attitude of being unwilling to face things now, the attitude of indecision. We have a saying that “procrastination is the thief of time.” It is worse than that; it is the thief of character. For character is decision. . . .
Then there are those who, after they decide, are always undeciding. They go over their decisions and undecide them by continuously worrying over whether they have made the right decisions. That indecision regarding one’s decisions is as weakening to character as no decision. Decisions must be decisive in order to develop character.
The Way
(Week 20, Friday)
Evangelism the Life Blood of the Church
Daniel 12:3; 2 Timothy 4:1-5; Revelation 12:10-11
Two things characterize the real Christian: we listen to God, and we talk to people. Many reverse that: they listen to people, and they talk to God. It was said of John the Baptist: “He came for the purpose of witnessing” (John 1:7 Moffatt). That is psychologically sound. The center was outside himself; he was not talking about himself. That made him a healthy-minded person, and effective.
The Way
(Week 46, Saturday)
2 Timothy 2:15, 24-26
Character is caught not taught.
The Way
(Week 52, Wednesday)
Jesus Was No Miracle Monger
Philippians 2:5-11
This is why the Incarnation had to take place before the Indwelling, for the Incarnation fixed the character and nature of the Indwelling.
The Way to Power and Poise
(Week 5, Saturday)
The Silent but Ultimate Forces of God
Acts 10:38; Isaiah 42:1
The ultimate character and the ultimate power are at work in the recesses of our beings, making us into the image of Jesus. We can ask for nothing higher; we can be content with nothing less. This is it: ultimate power produces ultimate character.
The Way to Power and Poise
(Week 7, Friday)
Just Turn the Doorknob
Matthew 9:20-21
Jesus says, “Whatever you pray for and ask, believe you have got it, and you shall have it” (Matt 11:24 Moffatt). Note: “have got it.” The word of Jesus is accomplishment, and when I take his word as accomplishment, then it is accomplishment. For behind that word is the character of Jesus, and behind the character of Jesus is the character of the universe. The nature of reality backs it.
How to Be a Transformed Person
(Week 7, Wednesday)
Growth in Balanced Virtues
2 Peter 1:3-8
If our God is unbalanced in character, we become unbalanced. We can be grateful, very grateful, that the center of our faith and our loyalty was the most balanced Character ever seen on our planet.
Growing Spiritually
(Week 48, Sunday)
Colossians 2:20-23; 3:1-8
A religion founded on rules comes up against two inexorable alternatives: Either the people in growing break the rules, or the rules are so strong they break the people. A religion founded on rules produces a resistance from the growing, or a restriction of the growing. But not so in the Christian faith. For here the Character, who is our code, is infinitely unfolding.
Growing Spiritually
(Week 50, Thursday)
Any Prods to Perfection There?
Revelation 21:22-26
To overcome [a] tendency to soft flabbiness, [fishermen] introduced huge catfish among the herring [they had caught]. The herring were always running away from the catfish, so they kept in firm condition until the end of the voyage. Life provides us with many “catfish” that prod us into firmness of character.
Growing Spiritually
(Week 52, Friday)
Everything Anchored to Jesus
Hebrews 2:7-9
The whole Christian faith is anchored to Jesus. God is anchored to Jesus. For we know little or nothing about God except through Jesus. Apart from Jesus we look up to God through our own conceptions, but these are usually misconceptions. Through them we arrive at something other than God. But through Jesus we see the Lord, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9 KJV). The character of God is none other than the character of Jesus.
Christ was anchored to Jesus. Apart from Jesus, the Christ—the Anointed One, the Messiah—has been misconceived, often as a nationalistic hero or a mystic. “I am the Messiah, Christ reincarnated,” said a Hindu in the hearing of a British sea captain. The blunt reply was, “Well, if you are, then I’m changing my religion.”
The Holy Spirit is anchored to Jesus. We know little or nothing about the Spirit’s character unless we see it in the character of Jesus: “[I] will send another Companion” (John 14:16 CEB)—“another” like me; “the Holy Spirit . . . will remind you of everything I told you” (v. 26); “he will take what is mine and proclaim it to you” (16:14). The Holy Spirit is a Jesus-like Spirit.
The Kingdom of God is anchored to Jesus. He fixes in his own person the character of the kingdom. The kingdom is the spirit of Jesus universalized.
Mastery
(Week 25, Wednesday)
Romans 1:19-20
When you see God in the face of Jesus, then “God is light,” light on everything. When you lose God you lose everything, and when you find God you find everything. . . .
God is light on character. In Jesus we see the character of God. God couldn’t do an un-Christlike thing and still be God. So Jesus is the key to the character of God and humanity. In him we see what God is like and what we can be like. He sets the pattern of character for God and for us. You can transfer to God every single quality of character in Jesus without lowering your idea of God. Lower your idea of God? You heighten it! For if God isn’t like Jesus, God isn’t good. You ask me my definition of goodness. I do not add virtue to virtue; I point to Jesus. He is goodness. If God isn’t like Jesus I’m not interested in God. If God is like Jesus, then God can have my heart without qualification or reservation.
Christian Maturity
(Week 7, Wednesday)
Whatever You Ask in My Name
To respond rightly to the requests and expectations of others is a high test of character. Jesus said that the Father was glorified in what Jesus granted. He would never answer or refuse a request unless the Father too would have answered or refused that request. He and the Father were one in prayer requests.
Yet Jesus seems to leave the matter wide open: “Whatever you ask in my name” (John 14:13). The important portion is “in my name.” “In my name” would mean “in my spirit, in my character.” It doesn’t mean just repeating the name of Jesus at the end of the prayer, but putting into the request the very spirit and character of Jesus: “Pray the prayer that [Jesus] would pray.” If you do that, then God is glorified.
In Christ
(Week 14, Wednesday)
The Name and the Spirit
Only in the name or character of Jesus Christ is reality revealed. Therefore God can’t give in any other name or character, for if God did so, God would be backing unreality and falsity.
In Christ
(Week 23, Saturday)
In Him the Whole Fullness of Deity
There is nothing in God that isn’t in Jesus Christ—at least in character and essence.
In Christ
(Week 40, Tuesday)
The Quest for the Perfect Revelation
Matthew 13:16-17
If God isn’t like Jesus, I am not interested in God. For the highest I know in the realm of character is to be Christlike. I said that in India, and a Hindu wrote to me: “You took my breath away. This is Bhakti [devotion] par excellence. You said you wouldn’t be interested in God if he were not like your Guru [Master].” But my guru is no human guru; my guru is God’s authentic self-revelation. When the disciples said, “Lord, show us the Father; that will be enough for us.” Jesus quietly said: “Whoever as seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:8-9), and it was one of the greatest moments in human history.
The Word Became Flesh
(Week 1, Friday)
The Silence of Eternity Has Been Broken
1 Corinthians 2:9-10
There was, and is, no other way for God to be revealed except in understandable terms, human terms. God had to show the divine character where your character and mine are wrought out, namely, in the stream of human history. The Word had to become flesh, or else not be the Word; it would be something else—words!
The Word Became Flesh
(Week 1, Saturday)
“He Has Visited and Redeemed”
Luke 1:67-68; 76-79
God dwelt among us from the cradle of the manger to the grave of the tomb. . . . God met life as you and I meet it—as a person, Jesus. Jesus called on no power not at our disposal for his own moral battle. He performed no miracle to extricate himself from any difficulty. If Jesus had power, he had power to restrain power, holding it only for the meeting of human need in others. He never performed a miracle just to show power or to confound an enemy. Jesus lived a normal life, so normal that it became the norm. He dwelt among us as one of us.
The Word Became Flesh
(Week 3, Monday)
A Person to Be Followed
John 21:18-19
God is like Jesus in character. Transfer every characteristic of character from Jesus to God, and you do not lower your estimate of God, you heighten it. For there is nothing higher for God or a person than to be Christlike. Jesus is God simplified, God approachable, God understandable, God lovable. When I say God, I think Jesus. And nothing higher can be thought or said! Jesus is the last word that can be said about God.
The Word Became Flesh
(Week 3, Thursday)
The Perfect Becomes the Progressive
Hebrews 6:1-3
In the realm of character there has been revealed an ultimate character, the Word of character has become flesh. The adjective Christlike is the highest descriptive adjective of character for both God and humans in any language. Beyond that revelation we will never progress. Does that stop character progress? It begins it. For now we know what the norm is. Now we know where to head; we know the goal. That fixed goal is the starting point for infinite progress.
The Word Became Flesh
(Week 4, Monday)
What Do I Want to Know About God?
Philippians 2:5-10
I want to know what God is like in character. For what God is like in character, I must be like. I cannot be at cross purposes with reality and not get hurt. So Jesus makes “known” (John 1:18) the character of God, makes it known in the only possible way God’s character can be made known, namely through another character—Jesus’ own.
And Jesus reveals the central thing in God’s character—Love!
The Word Became Flesh
(Week 5, Sunday)
An Unfinished World a Good World
Colossians 1:28-29
The purpose of God, our Parent, seems to be to produce character in God’s children. Not their ease, not their happiness (except as a byproduct), but their character. This means that this life would seem to be a vale of character-making. If this be the end, then God could not create a perfect environment. For character is produced out of overcoming oppositions, obstacles, and impediments. So God had to create a world unfinished. God’s purpose seems to have been to leave creation unfinished so that we could help finish it. God left just enough challenges on which to sharpen our wits and our characters. If God had made us perfect beings in a perfect world, we would never have developed. There would be nothing to sharpen us on. Perfect beings in a perfect world would lack one thing: growth!
The Word Became Flesh
(Week 15, Thursday)
1 Corinthians 10:31; 11:1
The whole fifth chapter of Matthew is not a collection of sayings, but a connected and organic whole, beginning at the sounding of the standard note, “Blessed are the pure [or undivided] in heart, for they shall see God” (v. 8) and ending in the final crescendo, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (v. 48). If you are undivided in heart, then you not only see God, you become like God, perfect in character and life as a child of God, as God is perfect as God. Nothing could be more ethically and spiritually sound than this. Our code of conduct is not based on ethical principles—the Word become word, or upon the will of God—again the Word become word, but upon the very character and conduct of God—the Word become flesh.
The Word Became Flesh
(Week 22, Wednesday)
Reliance on Character and Authority from Within
Romans 11:34-36
[A] fundamental tendency of the universe [is] to make character the basis of leadership and survival. Among the lower forms of life, the secret of leadership and survival is strength of physical character; among the higher forms of life, mental and moral character. In Jesus this comes to its highest form in moral and spiritual character. Here we see the highest moral and spiritual character ever seen upon our planet. You can transfer every moral and spiritual characteristic of Jesus to God without lowering your estimate of God. Lowering? You heighten your estimate of God when you think of God in terms of Jesus Christ. You simply know nothing higher to say about God or people than to say, “Like Jesus Christ.” Jesus is the ultimate character.
The Word Became Flesh
(Week 50, Saturday)