A Question of Character - March 18
Are you a man or woman "of character"? By that I mean, do those people who are closest to you generally believe you to be someone who is trustworthy, loyal and honest? The kind of person who can be counted on to do the right thing in matters big, as well as matters small?
Jesus addresses the issue of character a bit in Luke 14-16 (ESV). In Luke 16:10 Jesus says, "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much."
What Jesus is saying is that character can be a slippery slope. You pretty much come into this life with a "character rating" of zero. But the choices that you make every day, from that point on, will largely determine whether you develop into a man or woman "of character" or into... well... something much worse!
For example - you're walking down the road and you find a wallet with 10 bucks in it. You have to decide what to do. Do you just keep the 10 bucks and abandon the wallet, because you're sure that nobody would see you? Or do you attempt to find its owner and return it? Maybe you decide that keeping the money isn't such a big act of dishonesty. "After all", you tell yourself, "it's only 10 bucks, and it's not like it's going to make or break somebody's life!" But then... the next thing you know, you keep making those same kinds of character choices for a few years, and then one day you find a wallet that contains $500, and you suddenly don't find it so difficult to keep that much money either! Because again... you tell yourself that it's not going to make or break somebody's life - at least that's what you've convinced yourself of! Because you're currently at a "character rating" of -10 on a 10-point scale... and you didn't even see it coming!
Being a Christian means making honest choices, just as our God "does not lie." (Titus 1:2) It means being a man or woman "of character". So don't give the Devil a foothold in your life! Don't make a habit of telling "little white lies"... Don't make a habit of keeping things that aren't yours. Don't even start. Because God sees everything that we do. There's no such thing as, "nobody will ever know!" And in the end, His opinion of us is the only one that matters anyhow!