Our Lord Jesus Christ showed forth the character of God in His life. Words that describe Him could be faithful, righteous, peaceful, gracious, merciful, holy, meek, just, compassionate, longsuffering truthful and loving. Those same characteristics are what we need to strive to develop in our lives. In John 15:4, Christ uses the vine as an example of how much we need Him in our lives, “I am the vine, you are the branches: He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing.” Paul the apostle said in Galatians 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me” If Christ lives in us we must try to shine with his character. Not in PART, but with a balance of ALL aspects of His character. As humans, we tend to make allowances for our shortcomings, we make excuses for our bad behaviour. However, it’s not what we think but what our Lord thinks that counts. We need to seek things above and come to know and love our Heavenly Father by spending time learning what He thinks.
His word, the bible, is where we come to learn of his ways, his goodness and His expectations for us. Spending time in His word getting to know ALL aspects of his character and thinking deeply about them as we make decisions in our lives is “living out Gods character” We will still make mistakes, as we are not perfect, but when we try, others will see His character in us and this is what Our Heavenly Father is looking for. Let’s not fool ourselves to think we can pick out parts of His character to mirror in our lives and then make allowances for ourselves when we don’t feel we want to do something we should.
Matthew 7:21 says “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in Heaven.” Let’s be counted among those who know and DO Gods will so that we all may find a place in that wonderful time to come.
My notes taken mostly from bible study 1, “That I might Know Him” by Michael Wolstencroft, Rathmines Bible School September 2015
