Category: Uncategorized

Well the new year is upon us.  It seems like life is getting faster and faster.   I can remember when I was younger that Christmas and New Years couldn’t come fast enough.  It seemed to take forever to get here.  And now it seems to happen before you know it.  Life just keeps coming at us and it is very easy to get lost in the chaos.  So how do we keep ourselves on track?

God has gifted and designed everyone of us with a unique potential and purpose to fulfill.  One that is specifically crafted for us personally.  In fact it is so specialized that if we don’t fulfill our potential, absolutely no one else can.  So how do we know we are on the right track and fulfilling our purpose in life

First we need to know what God has said about us in the past.  For me that means going over the prophetic words that have been spoken over my life through the years.  Because it is very easy to forget about or overlook some of the things God said about me.  But at times we are all guilty of avoiding or ignoring completely what God requests of us.

And as we begin a new year we have the opportunity to refocus and realign ourselves so that we can completely fulfill our potential and walk in the fullness of what God has in store for each of us.  So we need to remember what God has said to us, but we also need to get current directions from Him as well.  God is speaking continually, and in our relationship with Him we can know what He wants for us now.  We also need to get current directions so that we can know we are on the right track, or so that we can get back to being on the right track.

It is important that we each fulfill what God has called and gifted each of us to do.  No one else can do your job.  And no job is insignificant.  God called each of us personally to walk with Him and to fulfill a great potential with Him.  It is up to us whether we actually do it or not.

Jesus asked people when He walked the earth “Who do you say I am?”  It is a question that people all through the ages have had difficulty answering.  Even His own followers struggled to answer Him.  They said things like John the Baptist, or Elijah, or Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.  Even today there is a large group of people with differing opinions on who Jesus is.

Some call Him a prophet.   Others say that He is God.  Others call Him a good teacher.  There are some who just relate Him to being a lunatic.  After all He did claim to be God in human flesh.  It was a hard thing for the religious leaders of His day to swallow, and there are many today who have difficulty still.  So who is Jesus?  If He were to walk the earth today I think He would be asking “Who do you say I am?”

And just like the people of Jesus’ day there would be many opinions, and few people who could give a definite answer.  When Jesus asked the question people responded with “Well some people say…”  To which Jesus replied “Who do you say I am?”  Jesus was looking for an answer that didn’t avoid the question, and I think He still is.  If we don’t know Jesus for who He truly is it completely affects the way we live our lives, and changes the expectation we have for what He can do.  And Jesus want’s to have disciples, or apprentices, which means that we become like Him.  So if we don’t truly know Him for who He really is, can we really become like Him?

I think Jesus is still asking us all “Who do you say I am?”  What will your answer be?

Character is something of an intangible thing that we all desire.  Character is important to all of us no matter what walk of life we come from.  Every person desires the people that they relate to and do business with to have good character.  This is evident by the types of people we look up to and admire.  People like

• Gandhi
• Martin Luther King
• Mother Teresa
• Billy Graham
• Abraham Lincoln
• and many others

The importance of character is also made evident when we find it lacking in those around us.  Whether it be people of importance in society, or simply the people we relate to we are disappointed when we find a lack of character in others.  Having good character is important to us.

But what is character?  How do we know if we have character?  How do we know what type of character we have?  How do I develop my character?  These are questions I have asked, and a great many others have been asking as well.

We most often define character by listing a series of admirable traits that we desire to have.  Traits like Responsibility,  Faithfulness, Honesty, Courage, Loyalty. And this is just a few.  We also look negatively on the traits that reveal a lack of character in us like Dishonesty, Cowardice, Rebellious, Apathetic, Lazy. But character cannot be defined by listing a series of traits.

So what is character?  It seems to defy definition.  One of the other ways we try to define character is to look at the lives of people who demonstrate good character.  If you watch NCIS you know the character Jethro Gibbs to be a man of character.  One of my favorite movies is Braveheart, and William Wallace is a man who stood in the face of great opposition and changed the world he lived in because of the strength of his character.  People of good character inspire us to rise above ourselves, and challenge us to become better.

But what is character?  Like many others I had difficulty defining what character really is.  Until I heard Andy Stanley preach on character.  He said “Character is the will to do what is right, no matter what the cost.” Finally I was able to define what character is.  All of  the people we admire who changed the world around them were people of character.  People who chose to do what is right, no matter what it cost them personally.

Living a life of character is costly to us personally.  The question is will we pay the cost.  The rewards greatly exceed the price we pay.  This is the question before us on a daily basis.  Will we “have the will to do what is right, no matter what the cost.”  This is a question only we can answer.  No one can develop character for us.  Only we can decide to rise to the occasion before us, or to remain in the shadows of mediocrity.