The Content Of Your Character
2 Peter 1:3-12 Amplified Bible (AMP)
3 For His divine power has bestowed upon us all things that [are requisite and suited] to life and godliness, through the [full, personal] knowledge of Him Who called us by and to His own glory and excellence (virtue). 4 By means of these He has bestowed on us His precious and exceedingly great promises, so that through them you may escape [by flight] from the moral decay (rottenness and corruption) that is in the world because of covetousness (lust and greed), and become sharers (partakers) of the divine nature.5 For this very reason, adding your diligence [to the divine promises], employ every effort in exercising your faith to develop virtue (excellence, resolution, Christian energy), and in [exercising] virtue [develop] knowledge (intelligence),6 And in [exercising] knowledge [develop] self-control, and in [exercising] self-control [develop] steadfastness (patience, endurance), and in [exercising] steadfastness [develop] godliness (piety),7 And in [exercising] godliness [develop] brotherly affection, and in [exercising] brotherly affection [develop] Christian love.8 For as these qualities are yours and increasingly abound in you, they will keep [you] from being idle or unfruitful unto the [full personal] knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).9 For whoever lacks these qualities is blind, [spiritually] shortsighted, seeing only what is near to him, and has become oblivious [to the fact] that he was cleansed from his old sins.10 Because of this, brethren, be all the more solicitous and eager to make sure (to ratify, to strengthen, to make steadfast) your calling and election; for if you do this, you will never stumble or fall.11 Thus there will be richly and abundantly provided for you entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.12 So I intend always to remind you about these things, although indeed you know them and are firm in the truth that [you] now [hold].
My daughter went to work the other day, and she was greeted by one of the managers, who approached her with such force and excitement her first thought was she had no idea what she had done wrong. After she listened to the words coming out of her mouth, she found that it was not what she had done wrong, but what she had done right. My daughter had begun working at a job, where she found the general manager was a little bit difficult at best to work with; she seemed to take great pleasure in yelling, and being unpleasant to her employees, as my daughter came home, to tell us how her day was and she would proceed with her day in review, to include how she was being treated, my husband and I would remind her to pray and to continue to be respectful and to do her job to the best of her ability, always with a smile. We encouraged her not to allow anyone’s behavior to take her from doing what she knew to do that was right. Well this same manager, who had treated her poorly, was now singing her praises to the other managers, and the manager relaying the story expressed to her that she never talks about employees unless it is something negative. God is faithful; her faith in God, her persistence in prayer and the content of her character had shined through and became the focus that could not be denied.
How often it is that we allow our character or what should be our character to become lost in the circumstance or our environment. We know how we should conduct ourselves but we choose to lose control of ourselves as a result of our environment, or the pressures and attitudes that are resident in an environment. Instead of being steadfast we allow what we view to be unfair treatment or wrong character and personality traits to derail us from who we understand that God expects us to be, and the things we know that we should be doing, saying and believing. We get into a place where we feel things will not change and we allow our frustration to become our guide for living and behaving and we allow the strength and resolves of God’s character to be lost to the obstacles or challenges we face. Many of us refuse to even study the Word of God enough to know who we should become and what characters we should be exhibiting so we are just being ourselves, and as so many say in this day, keeping it one hundred. But my questions is who’s one hundred are we keeping it? If we are acting out of character and step with the one we say that we love, are supposed to follow and be like, who’s character is it that we really are living in and whose standard of one hundred are we abiding under?
God does not walk around with attitude, talking about people and changing and reacting to every little offense, because if He did, many of us would not be alive to read this devotional, today. God’s character is steadfast. If we abiding in Him, we should exhibit that same steady characteristics that He does; we should be making choices in our life that without one word allows people to know who it is that we live for, not leave them questioning. Our character should never be dictated by whose company we find ourselves in, it should be dictated by who keeps company in us (Jesus). We should let God, through Christ Jesus and the operation of the Holy Spirit be exhibited in our lives daily, in a consistent level of integrity and truth, showing forth our faith and our commitment to God. Our mouth, emotions, attitude and thoughts should not derail our character, no matter who is around us, how they are treating us, for how long and what is the result. We have an obligation to speak the truth but to do it in love, that is not to say we lie down and become a door mat, but that we say what needs to be said when it is called for in a manner that is acceptable in God’s sight! What we contain in our character is our choice, so what are you choosing character wise?
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