Christian character is the characteristics of a Christian striving to follow Christ’s example.
In today’s scripture, we find the most damaging weapon in the world. It isn’t found in the militaries of the world’s superpowers. Nor is it contained in a nuclear missile hidden in a secret silo somewhere. The most damaging weapon lies in our mouth. It is that little piece of cartilage called the “tongue.”
We live in dangerous and scary times and that includes dangerous spiritual times. For the Christian, I am not referring primarily to persecution and the threat of being martyred. Granted, that is real and happening in our world today, but not in our neighborhoods or churches today – yet. We face a serious spiritual threat described by the Apostle Paul in a letter to a young pastor named Timothy (2 Timothy 3:1-5a). Pay attention to Paul’s list of the signs of end times. The first sign of end times is what causes Christians the greatest problem in their lives robbing them of the joy of walking with Jesus. It is the sin of selfishness; a focus on me, my, and mine. Paul calls it “people being lovers of self.” Then notice another characteristic in the middle of Paul’s list – “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”
Every Christian longs to please the Lord. We yearn to obey the Apostle Paul’s words, “Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more” (1 Thessalonians 4:1). Every day we should want to bring delight to the Lord in how we live, speak, and conduct ourselves in a godless world. And there are many ways we may do so. For today, I want us to focus on one of those ways. It is found in today’s scripture. We please the Lord and bring delight to His heart by living a life bathed in the spirit of thanksgiving.
The main character in today’s scripture (Hebrews 11:24-26) serves us well as a role model on how to not only live the Christian life, but to evaluate the quality of our Christian life. His name is Moses and he is included in the “Hall of Fame of Faith” chapter in our Bibles. When life gets tough and it will, look at Moses. Yet, there is something else about Moses leaving us a worthy model to follow. It happened before he became the great leader of Israel. This excellent quality in him is found in today’s scripture. It was his decisiveness when it came to living out his walk with God.
This gem is a very helpful and insightful book about the chief virtue we must develop to grow in the Lord: humility.
In an age when we see many Christians not walking in the joy of the Lord, this is a wonderful book to help us discover what truly the Lord wants of us: joy-filled lives walking with Him.