This is a time for true, godly character to be displayed. If America ever needed this message, it is in this hour. All over the earth the lack of character has caused horrible problems in corruption, vice, and every form of evil. According to Psalm 74:20 (KJV), “…the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.” In places where people don’t have character, there is horrible oppression upon the innocent, the poor, the handicapped, little children, or people of different races and nationality. But whenever the gospel comes to an area, character begins to rise.
The Bible – The Standard for Morality
There was a court case in 1844 in Philadelphia concerning an orphanage that received a large amount of money in a will. The writer of the will, however, stipulated that he did not want ministers or clergymen instructing in the orphanage. The donor had an aversion against Christianity, but he still wanted money to go for an orphanage. There was a statement in the will that also required that students who would be in this orphanage would be trained in the purest principles of morality. Here was their dilemma: Clergymen couldn’t lead the orphanage, but the will required that all the education be in the “purest principles of morality.”
The court case was Vital vs. Gerard, Executors, in the U.S. Supreme Court. The court ruled the city of Philadelphia could use the Bible to teach all of these students in the orphanage. The Supreme Court said, “Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the Bible, especially the New Testament?” In other words, if you’re going to teach morality, the Supreme Court had enough sense back then to look at all the sources of morality there were on the whole planet and realize it was found in the Bible. It was an absolute standard.
Character consists of the stable and distinctive qualities built into an individual’s life which determine his or her responses regardless of the circumstances. Character is also the wise response to the pressure of a difficult situation and what we do when we think that no one is watching us. It is the predictor of good behavior. Some examples of what would be considered “good character” include:
• Honesty
• Integrity
• Faithfulness
• Diligence
• Discretion
• Endurance
• Generosity
• Gentleness
• Honor (being able to honor those that deserve honor, including parents)
• Humility
• Justice
• Loyalty
• Obedience
• Taking Responsibility
• Self-control
• Truthfulness
The Highest Standard
Character principles can be taught, but if the heart is against God, it doesn’t matter how much information a person has until there is a true transformation on the inside of them. It’s very difficult for someone to live out a life that’s inconsistent with who they are in their heart.
Some people may be hard workers, others have disciplined themselves to have self-control in their lives, and still others may have been raised in a home where they were taught to be gentle and not harsh with their children. But if we’re going to go to the highest standard of character and allow our lives not to have just one trait but to go after all the traits of godly, good character, we have to surrender our lives to Jesus Christ.
The Bible says that Nicodemus was a good and disciplined man. He fasted and prayed regularly. He read his scriptures and regularly went to the temple. He was a religious man and a good man, but Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Nicodemus, you have to be born again, because you will not inherit eternal life until you are born of the Spirit. You’ve been born of the flesh. To be born again of the Spirit, you’ve got to receive the life of God in you.” (John 3:3 paraphrased).
Reclaiming Godly Character
After we’ve been born again and cleansed from the sin of rejecting God and rejecting Jesus, there are sins that happen to people along the way. We fall short at times in different things as we’re growing in our relationship with Jesus Christ. When we go to His throne of grace and say, “Lord, I ask You to forgive me of that sin. Cleanse me with Your blood from all unrighteousness,” He forgives us. The Bible says because His Holy Spirit has written His law in our hearts and in our minds, we don’t have to question whether something is right or wrong anymore, because we now have His conviction power in us. The Holy Spirit will convict us by saying, “That is wrong and you need to repent of that,” or “You need to reconcile that situation.”
In Philippians 2:12,13 Paul writes, “Beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” This scripture is about having the fear of the Lord operating in your life. The fear of the Lord causes you not to do certain things, because you’re thinking about the fact of pleasing God, honoring God, and not trying to just get away with whatever you can get away with. God sees everything. He knows everything, and one day when we stand before Him, we’ll give an account for everything that we’ve done.
The next verse goes on to say, “For it is God which is at work in you” (v. 14). Now that you’re born again, God is now helping you to do what is His will and what is His good pleasure. You realize that you’re not just trying to do what is right with your own ability. You have the power of Jesus Christ inside of you and He is enabling you to walk out your Christian life. If you sin, you know that you can come boldly to His throne of grace and find His mercy. Because you have the fear of the Lord, you don’t want to use His mercy and grace as a license to sin and do whatever your flesh wants to do. No, you have chosen to bring your life into alignment with what His Word says.
It’s a continual walking out while you’re living on this earth. You don’t just get saved and then say, “Okay, it doesn’t matter how I live or what I do.” You have a responsibility not only for your own life but for people who are watching you.
Learning from Others
When I was playing basketball in high school in south Arkansas in the early 1970s, we were in the process of integrating Caucasian and African Americans in our city. Up until this time there had been a high school for the white kids and a high school for those who were from the black community. They began consolidating school systems and we were in one of those schools. When young men came to play on our team that had never been in our system before, we just took them on.
I was raised in an atmosphere where we didn’t discriminate because of someone’s color. Many of these new guys came to school on buses, so they didn’t have transportation at night after athletic practice. A couple of us would drive them home after practice.
One day there was a knock on our door and some men in our community, who were fathers of other young men in my age group, had come to talk to my dad. My dad answered the door, and they told him how I didn’t need to be taking those young men across town in my car. I remember hearing some loud words and then the door slammed. That was my dad’s way of telling them, “You can get out of here, ‘cause there’s nothing changing in this situation.”
Dad could have shut the door a little nicer, but he made a point. We were not changing who we were because of their redneck prejudice! We were going to love people of all nationalities, of all colors, and treat people alike. That was a character principle I learned and it got deeply in me because of the way we were in my family.
I have learned and gained other character traits that perhaps were not part of how I grew up, but I saw them in someone else and admired their traits. I began applying them to my life and found that it is possible to take on new traits that maybe you were not raised around.
Growing into His Character
Character development is a process; it is not automatic. When we received Christ, we got all of His character. You have the ability with Christ in you to have all of His character traits coming out of your life. We received this character and then we begin to do what Paul said in Colossians 2:6, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him” Or in other words, as you’ve received His character in you, now live out His character in your words, in your deeds, in your actions.
We’ve got to go after character by having our heart filled with the life of God. If God’s inside of us, then there can be a production of fruit that bears the nature and the image of the character and the life that’s stamped on the inside of our inner being. We’ll grow the character trait of truthfulness because a God of truth lives inside of us. Goodness, because a good God dwells in us. Righteousness, because a righteous God dwells inside of us. Holiness, because a holy God lives on the inside of us. Loyalty, because He is the loyal, the faithful one. Generosity, because He is the generous God. Integrity, because He’s the ultimate source of integrity.