DAILY BYTESince our culture idolises giftedness to the extent it does, we seem to end up pouring a lot of time and effort into improving our giftedness. But there is one big problem with that … your giftedness is not the most important part about you.
Gifts are good but they are not the greatest good. After all, giftedness is NOT what will sustain us through difficult choices and complex, demanding times.
But character will.
I know that word sounds old-fashioned – character was the kind of quality that our dads or granddads always encouraged us to have. Normally when they were trying to get us to do something we didn’t want to do, ‘don’t worry about having to walk 5 miles through the snow barefoot, it’ll build character!’
But maybe those dads and granddads knew a thing or two. That is, because as we have already said, gifts are not the most important part of us, rather character is. Interestingly enough, the dictionary defines character as ’moral and ethical strength’.
I would want to broaden that definition somewhat but think it important, in the context of these devotions, that the word ‘strength’ is used. Important because it helps remind us of what the story of Samson is trying to say - that the source of true strength lies in areas other than just giftedness.
Character is an almost un-definable mixture of emotional and spiritual solidity, grit and common sense. Character is a word used to describe our habitual tendencies – the way we think, and feel, and intend, and choose. Character is the very core of WHO we are. Character determines our ability to healthily and vibrantly love God, love ourselves, and love others. Character determines how we relate.
Ortberg makes the very interesting observation that as much as we tend to envy giftedness in others, when we meet someone of outstanding character we naturally tend to more admire than envy them.
It is significant that the desire for good character leads more to admiration than envy!
Furthermore, it seems that God’s highest plans for each of us are centred on our character and its development. God’s plan is that we would all be filled with his Spirit, and that we would know the fruits of that filling. If you look at each of the fruits of the Spirit; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control; you will notice that they are all character-based qualities.
God’s plan is that we would over a process of time, become more like Jesus, that we would have his character formed in us.
This is God’s highest plan for each of us! God is deeply concerned with WHO we are and with WHO we are becoming; much more concerned than he is with what we can do.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Holy God, we do pray that you would form and shape our characters. Fill us with your Holy Spirit and work freely in our lives so that we may know the fruit of that filling. Make us more like Jesus everyday of our lives. Amen.
FOCUS VERSE
Galatians 5. 22-23
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
