What matters

In my quest to see more results from the exercising of my faith, the Holy Spirit keeps reminding me that character matters. It’s important to God who we are behind closed doors. Our failures don’t have to be public to be damaging. My private failures can do just as much harm. I suppose if I thought about it for just a minute and looked at the mechanics of faith, I would have come to this conclusion on my own.

Mark 11:22-24 is the great instructor on how to use faith as a child of God. It is from this scripture that most of us have learned about the possibilities of using faith. Mark 11 is the bedrock upon which all our teachings are built when it comes to faith. To paraphrase, Mark 11 tells us that we can profess into existence all the life Jesus bought for us. This passage instructs us to “say”; to use our mouth and tongue to make manifest things that only exist the spirit world. The passages mentions the word “say” three times and “believe” only once. One is tempted to underestimate the importance of the word "believe" because it is only referenced once but that would be a mistake. Despite the fact that is only mentioned once, it is a crucial element in the exercise of our faith. Saying is given more attention but it doesn’t hold more significance. We should be using our mouth and saying what we want to bring into this realm; there’s no accomplishing our full potential without it, but at some point in all that confessing, we need to actually believe what it is we are saying. We can’t ignore the significance of believing. This is where character comes into play.

Character is our credit line. The quality of our character is what people examine when they are deciding to trust us or not. If we have a good reputation for telling the truth, people are eager to trust us. If we have a bad habit of stretching the truth, people know it soon enough and will refuse to trust us regardless of the evidence. The same is true when it comes to trusting ourselves. When we confess something that stretches our faith, it is with the understanding that at some point, we are going to have to believe what it is we are saying. Believing our own confessions can be completely derailed by poor character. If we know ourselves well enough to know that we can’t be trusted because we are one person in public and another person behind closed doors, then we will NEVER believe our own confessions. Who we are when no one is looking is vitally important to living the life of faith. Our character, because it is not hidden from ourselves, tells our spirit how much we can be trusted when we make confessions.

Character will determine how much grace we enjoy. Character matters to God in all things but because so much relies on our character with regards to walking by faith, it is especially important to Him when it comes to deciding how much grace He can lavish on us. Everything God gives us is by grace. We have received nothing from Him accept that which He has given us through grace. We have the faith to believe in Him because HE gave us the grace to receive that faith. We have the light and revelation we have because He poured enough grace on us to understand this much. With more grace will come more revelation and light. We need grace. We can’t survive until the end of this sentence without His grace. When it comes to getting our prayers answered, grace is the crucial element. With greater grace, our confessions become more potent. With greater grace our words mature into physical existence faster. Greater grace equals greater power. And our character has greater impact on the grace we receive than anything else. God does not reward poor character with more grace. He continues to love and minister until our character improves but He does not burden us with more revelation than our characters can manage. To give great grace to an ill-grown character would be cruel. The one with poor character would still be held responsible for the proper use of that grace. Being unable to properly handle the greater grace would only expose that person to greater judgment. God is merciful in His restraint. He desires to lavish great grace on us but protects us from great harm by withholding it until our character is prepared to support the responsibility.

Character is the ultimate demonstration of our faith. What we do when no one is watching shows God what we truly believe. If we serve Him behind closed doors then we are declaring our faith in His ultimate authority in this universe. What we do in public cannot be trusted as a true sample of our character. Our public personae plays such a vital role in our fleshes well-being and comfort that our flesh often develops a mastery of deceit. It is impossible to detect if someone is being genuine or artificial through their public behavior. However, it is easy to detect someone’s true colors if we can see their private behavior. Public scrutiny acts as society’s policeman and distorts our view of people’s true nature. Privacy, however, acts as society’s liberator and allows us to indulge in our true selves. If the person you are publicly, serves God and obeys God, that’s great, but your motives are always suspect. If, however, the person you are privately serves God and obeys God then your motives cannot be questioned. You are serving God for no other reason than you recognize Him as your Lord and Savior.

Character matters. Character determines how much of God’s presence we enjoy. Character determines how much of God’s power we exercise. Character determines the quality of relationship we enjoy with God. Our private behavior is something that no one else can give God on our behalf so He cherishes this as something precious. Character matters and there is NO substitute for it. Our confessions will ricochet off the ceiling and never reach the ear of God without character. Lord help us develop our character so we can be trusted with more of your agenda. Thank you Lord.