Home » C H A R A C T E R

C H A R A C T E R

by Damilola Oguntunde

Good morning Friends, I trust we had a wonderful weekend, It was a long one for me. So I’m here on my bed at 12:20 a.m, trying to pick up any frequency of inspiration from the atmosphere so I can have something to put up this morning for you to read and be inspired by. It’s always a privilege to be given the opportunity to influence you with a Divine Perspective on issues concerning the total well being of your Christian life. Today we move on to another series, I sincerely don’t know how long this will last, but I trust that we’d enjoy every bit of the journey. I for one enjoyed the Word Series, how about you? If your answer was “Yes I did too”, then share those links with friends and family and be a part of the labourers here… Psalms 68:11. For this new series, I depend on God for Grace to bring home the import and essence of CHARACTER in our daily Christian lives.

If the Word of God cannot change a man and turn him into another species of being that has never existed before, then we can as well tear our bibles and go bow down to some slimy cocoon somewhere in the amazon. The reason I said that is because I have seen the Word of God change a man and turn him completely around, so much that men began to SEE the tangible change in his life and then gave glory to God. God’s ultimate concern for a believer isn’t for the believer to just make heaven and stay there for all eternity, else He would have had to kill every Christian the moment we got saved, so we can get there quick enough. So why did God leave us here on earth after we got saved?…So that we can show the world a new order of doing things, through the software of LOVE. God more than anything wants to display His glory to the World through the believers.

Eph 3:10(EasyEnglish) His purpose was to show now, at this time, how completely he understands everything. He wanted the *spiritual rulers, that have authority in the *heavens, to know this. They would know it by the church (God’s people).

How does God intend to show His majestic power to the world of principalities and powers through His people in the Church? One would think it would be through earth shaking, mountain moving faith and miracles wrought in every corner of the earth, but not quite, Miracles are awesome, they do alot to the unbelieving world. However, the highest expression of God’s essence was not Faith, Power, Miracles, Tongues, or Revelation… The highest expression and definition of God is a CHARACTER virtue called LOVE. 1John 4:8. I believe Christians have under prioritised the place of Character in our Christian walk with God. We’re quick to judge he with the highest revelations to be the most spiritual, and he with the tickest tongues to be the most “spirikoko”, however God doesn’t see the way man sees. 1 Sam 16:7. Character development is God’s biggest assignment in any believer’s life. You might wonder, what good is all the “read your bible pray everyday” mantra doing to your life? What is the point of all these church attending, listening to the Word and the service we all do in Church? Well, they’re all there to get you ready for your REWARD. Make no mistake, We get into heaven by Grace through Faith, but we receive rewards in heaven by goodworks borne out of LOVE.

Hebrews 6:10(kjv): For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister. 1Cor 15:58(kjv): Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Matt 16:27(kjv): For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Rev 22:12(kjv): And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.

In all these passages, we see some recurrent words like works, labour, and reward. There is no reward in heaven without works, but these works must be birthed by the womb of Character and solid virtue. This question of Character is the most demanding quest in our generation. It’s way easier these days to have one’s name in the Guinness book of world records than to have a lie-free week. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to have men of honour, integrity and character in our societies, and the Church must take responsibility for this decadence. No other institution in the nation is saddled with the duty of equipping the saints with the virtues of Christ apart from the Church, hence our sense of responsibility. But I guess the Church’s focus has shifted from building solid men of Character to building solid tents of brick and mortar. The early Church always had a crop of men of honest reports and full of the Holy Ghost to pick leaders from, but it’s like we’re fast neglecting the part of the honest report in our day. Have you ever asked why that criterion of a honest report came before that of being full of the Holy Ghost? There’s a Pauline Prayer in Colossians;

Col 1:11(kjv): Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;

It says when the WHOLE of God’s glorious power is imparted on a man, what it will produce will not be faith, or revelation or healing, what it will produce will be CHARACTER; Patience, Longsuffering and Joyfulness. Character is the strongest expression of your Christian life, it’s all you have of God to show the world now, and all God has to reward you for later. For the next few weeks if not months, we would delve into several dimensions of Character development and growth as we endeavour to be more and more like Christ while we await His second coming. The theme for our next post will be “It’s All In Love”. Have a beautiful week ahead!

You may also like

8 comments

Oluwadara July 20, 2015 - 7:08 am

Character series…
Blessed by the first post already.
Well done sir.

Reply
Adeleke July 20, 2015 - 9:33 am

Hmmmnn….what a word CHARACTER, God bless you sir

Reply
Abisola July 21, 2015 - 11:41 pm

Wow! This is inspiring already…
Thank you so much sir.

Reply
Dami July 21, 2015 - 11:53 pm

Blessed

Reply
Ogunoye Tunji July 22, 2015 - 9:20 pm

Thanks so much SIR.
A great piece!

Reply
Dahmielawla July 23, 2015 - 1:28 am

This is very thoughtful…Thanks Sir.

Reply
St_Sanmi July 24, 2015 - 9:15 am

Lools @”thickest tongues”
I’m a string Christian joo…#Reassuring piece. Thank you

Reply
St_Sanmi July 24, 2015 - 9:54 am

*strong

Reply

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.