Character Qualities of a Christian: Generosity

           This is an issue that is difficult to find an answer to. Many people have a hard time deciding how much money to tithe or give to charity or anything else. The popular thing currently is the eradication of poverty, which is a fine goal, but is it really going to happen. You may feel guilty because you eat three meals a day combined with four or five snacks and there are children in India who survive on three grains of rice a day. The Dollar-a-Drink movement that was started several years ago was a movement to get people to take the dollars they would use on a soft drink, get water instead, and donate the money to the Dollar-a-Drink foundation. That movement has gone one to donate several hundred thousand dollars towards digging wells for children in Africa, and that is great!

            

           So the question is, “What should we do with the money and resources that God has blessed us with?” Well, first of all, everyone has been given different amounts of financial versatility. Matthew 6:19-34 talks a good deal about wealth and possessions, but once again it leaves it in a sort of “viewer’s discretion”. It gives general guidelines and advice, but it doesn’t give an absolute “thus sayeth the LORD” type of command, which makes it so that you have to decide what you are going to do.

            

           You have two things that are commands to do with your money: 1. Tithe ten-percent of it and 2. Take the tithing money out first. Some Christians outline their budget and then whatever is left they tithe (which usually is not much). Another thing that Christian’s sometimes do is say, “Well, I’ve tithed, so the rest is for me!” This attitude is wrong, because God gave you the resources that you have in order to bring glory to Himself. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says “Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” I think that this applies to how you spend your money, too. This doesn’t mean that you can’t buy a nice television or eat good food, but be a good steward of the possessions that God has given you.

           

           Something that I have been thinking about recently is the fact that no matter how many orphans in Africa we feed, they will still be hungry tomorrow. Before I continue, I would like to make it very clear that giving money for foundations like Project Saturate, Dollar-a-Drink, and World Vision is a great thing and a very good use of your money. However, these impoverished people need something greater, something that satisfies forever: the bread of life (John 6:35). If we do not communicate the gospel clearly to these children, we are not really helping them.

            

           Another mistake that some people make is thinking that the only thing you should do with your money is give it away to the poor. Some people can really take this to the extreme and live a Spartan lifestyle. You can sit down at the table and think one of two things about the large dinner that you are about to consume. 1. This is more than some children around the world eat in a week, or 2. Thank you, God, for providing me with bountiful resources that I may enjoy pleasures you have given to me and that you have enabled me to give my money to others. Which attitude will you choose?

Character Qualities of a Christian: Integrity

           In today’s culture, the word “integrity” is not used much. Integrity is a rather complex word that means trustworthy, honest, or accountable. The lack of integrity is immense in the world today, with parents that don’t know where or what their child is doing, because that child lacks integrity. They haven’t been accountable and have not let their parents know where they are. Another possible meaning of integrity is diligence; when someone completes a job completely, without the smallest hint of cutting corners.

            

           The word “integrity” is used twenty-four times in the New King James Version of the Bible. I’m just going to center in on a few of these passages. First, you read throughout Job that he was blameless and upright and then, after he suffered, he held to his integrity (Job 2:3). Second, there is Noah, who in Genesis 6:9, where he is called “perfect”, which is also translated as having integrity or blameless. Then, you see in 1 Kings 9:4, God is talking to Solomon, and He refers to David having integrity of heart and being upright. In Titus 2:7, Paul is outlining the qualities of a sound church, and he says to show integrity.

            

           Proverbs has several things to say about integrity, and it is normally contrasted or used as an antonym to the word “perverse”. Proverbs 20:7 says, “The righteous man walks in his integrity; his children are blessed after him.” Children tend to observe their surroundings, including the people around him, and they tend to act like those around them. Thus, if their parents are walking in integrity, the children will tend to act the same (no guarantees, though).

            

           Proverbs 19:1 and 28:6 say basically the same thing; that the poor who walks in his integrity is better than the perverse who does what he wants, even if he is rich. I think that you don’t necessarily have to look at this verse in monetary terms exactly, but look at it like this: walking in integrity can cost you to lose your job, girlfriend, perfect GPA, or other tangible things. If you lose those because of walking in integrity, you more than likely did not need those things. If your only shot on a test is to cheat, but you don’t and get a C on your test, it will be worth it to know that you gave it your best shot and you did not cheat.

            

           Throughout this article, I have used the phrase “walking in integrity”, and I want to quickly define that. Walking in integrity means that people can trust you to do anything and that you will go above and beyond their expectations and demands, and at any time on any day, someone can ask you what you’re doing, and you respond with the truth and with a clear conscience. I will not lie, walking in integrity is extremely hard; possibly one of the hardest things you will have to learn. Now, that being said, there are benefits, which include: accountability, people that trust you, a good reputation, and a clean conscience. In conclusion, just remember this: habitual honesty – integrity – must be the goal in all our dealings¹.

^1. R. Kent Hughes Disciplines of a Godly Man, 10^th edition (2006), Published by Crossway Books

Character Qualities of a Christian

In my next several blog articles, I hope to gain a better idea of what a Christian should look like and what character qualities he or she should have. We can never achieve perfection, which can seem kind of disappointing and make our Christian walk look pointless, but in fact the benefit of our imperfection is that we always have room to grow. The following list is a list of qualities that I’m going to attempt to write specific articles on, and a few more may come up later on.

- Integrity

- Generosity

- Kindness

- Purity

- Patience

- Humility

- Self-Control

- Thankfulness

- Joy

- Faith

            These ten things are essential in a Christian’s life, and they should be considered in all aspects of life, whether it be relationships, work, school, or anything else. They also present a challenge to change. I can fairly confidently say that nobody on this planet has perfected all of these things all of the time. If I may be so bold as to add that we all can work on these things, no matter what your circumstances are. 

When It's All Been Said and Done

Grab your Bible and open up to Matthew 6:19 and read through verse 21. This passage is talking about temporal things compared to eternal things. In today’s current culture, we can practically buy anything. There a maxim that states simply, “People will do anything for a dollar”, which in actuality is true in today’s culture. So you can take this passage in three different ways:

1. You can go and live on the bare necessities of life, consecrating your life to the study of the Bible, and sell everything that you have, giving the money that you earned to the poor.

2. You can enjoy some of the pleasures that God has given you without making them idols of your heart. You can use the money, great or small, that God has given you to promote good things (i.e. giving to the church, giving to missionaries, etc.).

3. You can let this passage have no effect on you and continue your life unchanged by the passage.

            

           Option number one is the extreme response, which is not exactly biblically based, although devoting your life to the study of God’s Word is a good thing. The problem is that God has put you where you are with the income for several reasons. For instance, if you have no money, you cannot support missionaries, and they play an important role in the spreading of the gospel. Another thing is that God has put certain pleasures on this earth so that we may enjoy them in moderation.

            

            Option number two is the one that I want to focus on right now. Now, it’s okay to have tangible things, but seriously, some of us (make that a lot of us) need to cut back. Everyone has their “thing”, mine is movie making, so I’ll use that as an example. It isn’t wrong to have a nice camera, greenscreen, movie props, and all of that paraphernalia, but in the end, that’s not going to matter. Turn in your Bible to 1 Peter 1:7, which says, “^7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ…” This passage says basically that what we’ve done on earth will be tested by fire, and all of the temporal things (things of this world) will burn, and everything eternal will last.

            

           By eternal things, I mean things such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, purity, and humility (Galatians 5, 1 Corinthians 5). These are the virtues that we must be building here on earth. This short time period of a few decades is all of the time we have on earth, yet somehow we acquire more things for this time period than we build for eternity. Think about this: We are on earth for maybe seventy years, and we, as Christians, have an eternity in heaven. If you’re having trouble thinking about what eternity is, imagine opening up a word document as a five-year old child, and pressing the “1” key once, and pressing the “0” key and holding it. If you held that your entire life and you lived to be 1,000 years old, the number at the end of your life would not even come close to the amount of years that we’ll have in heaven. So let me end this article with one question, “When it’s all been said and done, what will matter?”