Character 13

Mat. 5:9 ... "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called 'sons of God'."

In other articles in this series, we have seen that Jesus is the only model for best character, for the word "character" is used only one time in the New Testament, and then it is applied to Jesus, (Heb. 1:3). In this article, the emphasis is upon peace as an essential of true character, for it is exmplified in Christ. We are told in Isa. 9:6 that He is the Prince of Peace. His great work on earth was to establish peace between man and God, as well as peace between man and his fellow man. He taught His disciples to be peacemakers. When He sent them out on a tour of Galilee to proclaim His gospel, He told them, "What-ever house you enter, first say, 'Peace be to this house'," (Luk. 10:5). In Rom. 12:18, all Christians are instructed, "If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men." If peace cannot be estab-lished between a Christian and someone else, it should not be because the Christian has not gone to the limit in the effort to bring it about. A disciple of Christ must always be open to making peace, being ready and willing to put away tension and suspend the agitation that prevents peace.

There are people with whom it is not possible to achieve peace and maintain it.  They are intractible, suspicious of everyone's intentions, and seem to think anyone who approaches them is a threat. This is inplied in the words, "if possible," in Rom. 12:18. This writer once knew a man who attended church each Sunday and thought himself a Christian. But he criticized everyone, found fault with everyone, and was quick to argue with anger. He obviously had a character flaw and was detrimental to the local church's effort to project the spirit of Christ to the surrounding community. The good character of the many was compromised by the irrascible temper of this one person. When someone is of this nature, he is blind to Jesus' model, which features peace.

It is the mission of Christians to persuade people who are not disciples to discover in Jesus the best way of life in this world and the reward of life in heaven in eternity. The effort to persuade is not (speaking metaphorically) by "closing doors, building walls, and burning bridges" in relating to people about you. Such hostile and repulsive action will present a false image of Christ and turn people more completely away from Him and from the salvation of their souls. It is the goal of the genuine Christian to "open doors, dismantle walls, and build bridges" to gain friendly access to people about them. This is the Way of  Peace, the Way of Christ, and a large part of the essense of good character.

Character 12

Mat. 5:8 ... "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

In this series of articles the objective is to advocate the best model of character to be that which is seen in the life of Christ and in His teaching as recorded in the New Testament. In earlier articles the case was presented for Jesus' life to be the superior character model. Then, attention was turned to the Beati-tudes which Jesus stated in Mat. 5:3-12 in the effort to commend each of them as a component of true character. Thus far, five of them have been featured: humility, feeling sorrow for the presence of sin and its damage in human life, gentleness, righteousness, and being merciful. In this article we shall focus our attention upon the sixth, which is given in v.8, "Blessed are the pure in heart."

The word "heart" is here used metaphorically for affective mental activity.  It has nothing to do with the physical organ that pumps blood through the body. But there is an analogous relationship involved. As the work of a healthy heart is essential to keep the body alive, the work of the mental heart is neccesary to maintain spiritual life. We all know people whose physical heart failed. They died and were buried. If one's mental heart ceases to function, they become spiritually dead. They keep on living physically and go about the regular course of daily life as usual. But spiritually they are dead. A great many people of the earth's population are physically alive but spiritually dead. Because they do not have pure hearts, in the sense Jesus used the word, they have no spiritual life.

I have not invented this idea, but rather took it from the New Testament, where people whose hearts have not been purified from sin are spoken of as being spiritually "dead." One of the many such state-ments is Eph. 2:1, "You were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world." The people to whom these words were first addressed were very much alive in the usual sense; they were going about their ordinary daily activities. But their hearts were defiled by "trespasses and sins," that is, their way of life was beyond the limit (trespass) of God's stand-ard, and it fell short (sin) of what God intended for them . Trespasses and sins soil the heart just as dirt and mud soil the body. Soap and water will remove dirt and mud from your skin, but it will not remove the moral filth of trespasses and sins from your heart. Only the grace of God through Christ can do that, as it did for the Ephesians. We are told that "even when we (the writer and his readers) were dead in our transgressions," God "made us alive together with Christ ... and raised us up with Him." As Jesus was resurrected to life after He was crucified, those who respond to God's will by faith and obedience are "raised up" from spiritual death to the fulness of spiritual life. In being "raised up," which is the same as being "born again" (John 3:3,5), the "heart" is purified, spiritually cleansed. This is essential to attaining Christian character, the major thesis of these articles.

Once the heart has been cleansed, it is the individual's task to keep it pure. This is an essential task for a very important reason, which is revealed in Pro. 23:7, "As (one) thinks in his heart, so is he." Our exterior self is determined by our our interior self, which is our heart. A person with an impure heart cannot have good character, for sooner or later the impurity within will emerge in his speech, behavior, and disposition and betray what his real nature is. What constitutes an impure heart? And what kind of action does it produce in outward activity? Jesus answers these questions in Mat. 15:19, "Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders." The human activities that warp society and make it dysfunctional, have their origin in the attitudes, thoughts, ideas, and moods of the heart. There is a common belief that you can think whatever you like, if you keep it to yourself. That is, you can imagine or fantasize anything, as long as you keep to yourself. This cannot be done, according to the Lord. You cannot "keep the lid" on your inner self always; eventually the rotten-ness will escape. It is like the decaying matter at the bottom of a swamp. The decay emits foul gas, which colletcs into noxious bubbles that break loose, rise to the top, burst on the surface of the water, and befoul the atmosphere. How often do we see such happen in human behavior? A person who has never attracted attention enters a school one morning and kills as many little children and teachers as he or she can with an automatic rifle.

If you keep your heart pure, only goodness, kindness, and benevolence will surface in your speech, deeds, and moods. You will be an asset to society, promote the welfare of many people, and brighten the scene wherever you happen to be. Your character will fit the model of Jesus, for He never displayed anything but what was pure.

Character 11

Mat. 5:7 ... "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy."

In these articles on the importance, the value, and the need for good character, the assertion is made that the best model is Christian character, as revealed to us in the life and the teachings of Jesus Christ. The scope of His model is far greater than these articles will encompass. But what they will project, I hope, is enough of that model to encourage the reader to recognize its superiority and concede to build into his own life the components revealed. The focus so far has been the essentials of character commended in the Beatitudes with which Jesus introduced the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. Four of them have already been featured in previous articles:  humility, feeling sorrow for the presence of sin and its damage in human life, gentleness, and righteousness. The fifth one is presented in v.7, being merciful. To be merciful means to extend mercy to fellow humans in situations where it is justified and will effect improvement.  Mercy is justified when a person has blundered, caused trouble, and offended. If the offender is amenable to guilt for the problem he has caused and indicates the desire to rectify it and avoid further offense, mercy to that person will result in significant improvement.

Mercy is essentially suspending the demand of justice and giving a person a second chance after he has blundered. This is how God shows us mercy. It is demonstrated in John 8 when a woman was arrested in the very act of adultery and brought to Jesus for justice.  The prevailing law specified that the woman should be stoned to death. Jesus did not approve of what the woman had done, for it was an act of sin.  Neither did He deny the application of the Law, but He did modify it by reminding the accusers that another law impinged on the case and must be applied as well: "The one who is without sin among you,  let him be the first to throw a stone at her," (v.7). The implication in the words "without sin" is being innocent of the specific sin for which the arrest was made, adultery. Jesus meant that any one of the accusers who was not himself guilty of adultery was to be first to throw a stone and begin the woman's destruction. Verse 9 reports that one-by-one the men quietly slipped away from the scene.  Soon only the woman was left in the presence of Jesus. He looked up and asked her where were the men who had arrested her and sought her condemnation. Verse 11 then reports, "She said, 'No one, Lord.' And Jesus said, 'I do not condemn you, either. Go, from now on sin no more.'" This is a remark-able case of mercy extended. Jesus perceived that the woman could learn from the incident that adultery is a sin and is due death, which is really the penalty for ALL sin, (Rom. 6:23). So, He suspended the application of the law and extended to her a second chance for continued life, but with an exceedingly important provision: "Go, from now on sin no more." Again, the reference is to the same sin, for the woman would indeed sin again, (I John 1:8,10).  But this woman saved by mercy must NEVER commit adultery again! That prevention was indeed within her ability to accomplish.

Everyone one of us, from the person whose occupation is religious down to the criminal in prison, sins and deserves the penalty for sin. And our continuation in life testifies that God is extending mercy to us with the intention that we will recognize our sin, feel genuine remorse for it (Beatitude No. 1), seek God's forgiveness, and be released from the terrible penalty impending upon us. This disposition of God toward us is revealed in II Pet. 3:9, "The Lord ... is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." God does not want to zap sinners, for He gave them a soul in His own Image, (Gen. 1:27). He wants us to see our sin, repent of it, and "from now on sin no more." He wants everyone to live in His presence in heaven for eternity. This is the purpose and great blessing of mercy.

We all know that there are people who refuse to show mercy and forgive a person of an offense. Those who hold such grudges are beset with a very serious character flaw. In fact, it is a character flaw that is fatal. In Mat. 18:21-35 Jesus told a parable about a man who was released from an enormous debt by a great act of mercy. But that man then refused to remit the small debt of a man and had him imprisoned. Because of this iron disposition of being unmerciful, Jesus said the man must be "handed over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him." That is, the mercy that excused him of a colossal debt was withdrawn until he should repay it. And that "until" meant "forever," because the debt was too immense to repay. Jesus concludes the parable by stating a principle by which God deals with man: "My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart."

To exclude yourself from God's mercy, the only thing that separates you from eternal torment, just do not be merciful. Mercy is, therefore, a basic component of real character, and a wonderful and beautiful thing it is. And finally, it does not cost you anything to show mercy to another person.  But it will cost you an eternal fortune if you don't. 

Character 10

Mat. 5:6 ... "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."

      Most simply stated, "righteousness" is maintaining a right relationship with God, and that can come only through faith in God and obedience to His instructions. This is not saying that righteousness is what you develop through obedience, for righteousness cannot be achieved by anything you do. If it could, then righteousness would be something earned through meritorious service, making it a debt God owes to a person. But God cannot be put into debt to man! The New Testament rather speaks of one "being clothed with the righteousness of Christ," (Rev. 7:12-14). When you put your faith in God as the Supreme Being, the Creator of the Universe, and the Source of life and existence, and then submit to His will revealed in Holy Scripture, Christ confers His rightousness upon you. The expression in Rev. 7:12-14 symbolizes righteousness as a beautiful, elegant robe with which Christ clothes His approved disciple.  It is a robe of His origin and design, available only from Him, and conferred only by Him.

      A najor component of Christian character is, therefore, being deeply concerned about becoming righteous. It must be a constant driving urge within you, similar to the ever present desire for food. A person can eat a full meal to complete satisfaction, and within hours the pressing cry of the body for food returns. Then, the longer the person goes without eating, the greater the hunger builds until the person craves food. This desire and need continues daily throughout life; and if the person does not eventually satisfy that urge, he will die of starvation.  Jesus says in Mat. 5:6 that our desire for right-eousness must be similar to our hunger for food and thirst for water. The need for water is greater than that for food, and the lack of water will lead to death more quickly than starvation without food.

      Righteousness is therefore spiritual food for the soul as much as physical food is for the body.  Everyone on earth hungers for food and thirsts for water to maintain physical life.  But a great part of mankind ignores the soul's need for spiritual food and drink.  The body deprived of food and water will die, and the soul deprived of righeousness will also die. The New Testament often speaks of people who are physically alive but spiritually dead. Those who are righteous, and therefore spiritually alive, are a blessing to the world. They do good, spread benevolence, maintain peace, and build harmonious rela-tionships that continually improve society.  Those who are not righteous and are spiritually dead, are not a blessing to the world. They are the source of dysfunction in society, disturbing the peace and disrupt-ing the general welfare. From those utterly destitute of righteousness come the criminal element, the violent, and those who corrupt morality and thus wreck the lives of many others.

      Righteousness, God's gift to those of faith who respond to His will, is an essential to good character and the welfare of all humanity. It lifts the plane of human life above the common desire to satisfy physical desires, the Epicurean goal to "eat, drink, and be merry." Rightousness sets higher goals than wealth, power, fame, and being served rather than learning the true joy of serving others who for many reasons lack the essentials for a pleasant, meanigful life. Righteousness is NOT walking about detached from the daily struggle of life, with hands together and fingers upward, with eyes lifted to the sky, and the continual verbal emission of the Lord's Prayer, special Scriptures, and "praise Jehovah." That is the world view of the righteous, religiously oriented life. But being truly righteous is what has been des-cribed above, and it is the real hope for the best world here in which to live.

      The popular models of good character that are publicly advocated do not include righteousness as a component, because they are secular and omit religion and spirituality. But the wisdom that transcends the physical dimension in which we live, that is, the wisdom from the spiritual dimension revealed by Christ, advises us that righteousness is an essential component of good character. Without it, any character model is flawed and will not ulitmately succeed.

Character 9

Mat. 5:5-6 ... "Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth."

      In the previous essay in this series, we saw that, in the Beatitudes with which Jesus introduced the Sermon on the Mount, He revealed two essential components of Christian character, humility and sorrowful. The latter is not the common sorrow for life's adversities, but sorrow for the presence of sin that does such enormous damage in human life. In this essay, we shall consider another essential trait of true character. It is presented in the third Beatitude, ""Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth." In its noun form, the term is gentleness. Its presence in a man makes him a gentleman; and in a woman it makes her a lady. In English, the true meaning of these terms has been mostly abandoned.  But in previous generations they were generally understood to refer to the excellence of an individual's character.

      In today's culture, "gentleman" means little more than adult male. It then includes undeserving men who are rude, rough, and bullyish. Likewise, a woman can be trashy, uncouth, and slutty, and still be covered by the word "lady." There are many men these days who are not gentlemen, and a large set of women who are not ladies. In my own working vocabulary, I am careful not to apply these honorable terms to people whom I do not perceive to deserve them. In fact, it seems that the prevailing view of what constitutes real manhood has morphed into this image: A real man is an aggressive competitor, who comes in first in any context no matter what, an obvious "macho." Likewise, girls are no longer trained to be ladies; it is rather the goal to enable them to project as far as possible into the male world as they can go. That is, "If a man can do it, so can a woman!"

      A gentleman is a man who is gentle, for that is the original, basic meaning of the word. He will show tender feelings of kindness, compassion, and grace to all about him. He will not be embarrassed to shed tears in a somber setting, or to hold and comfort a baby, or sit with those who are sick, weak, and lonely. Most of the men I know feel very uncomfortable in this role, because they have been con-ditioned to accept the worldly concept of manhood, not the Christian concept.  When a man does dare to assume such a role, it can become somewhat senational. Recall, e.g., the iconic photo of the fireman carrying in his arms the small child who survived the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City on 19 April 1995. That is the picture of a true gentleman!

Character 8

Matt. 5:3-4 ... "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

      In Mat. 5:3-12, at the opening of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presents eight features of the kind of personality He wants His disciples to have.  He then promises a blessing upon the person who will build these features into his thinking and consequent behavior.  A blessing is paired with each of these features, so that the quality of the person's life is enriched and lifted to a higher plane. A view has developed in the popular explanation of this passage that "blessed" means "happy," and thus it is translated in some recent versions of the New Testament. A more careful examination shows this view to betray the essential idea in Jesus' meaning.  "Happy" is from the root word "hap," which denotes chance and its random nature. But a blessing is not the product of chance; it is a measure of God's grace received. A person who is blessed has a reason to be happy, but a person can be blessed without being happy. Many is the time in a Christian's experience when the roughness of life is stressful and unplea-sant, but God's blessing is still with him, if he perseveres in faith and trust in God's providence. Clouds of trouble often darken the lives of God's people, but He will eventually part the clouds. and the sun-shine of His goodness will bring light and joy.  So, it may be said ... A Christian's life will pass from sorrow and oppression to joy and exaltation, but at all times God's blessings are present. I advise that we not replace Jesus' word "blessed" with the weak and shallow, but very popular term, "happy."

      The character trait that appears in the first beatitude is humility: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." A person who is "poor in spirit" is an humble person who does not put himself before others. He is always concerned about the situation of people around him, especially if they are having difficulty. He does not consider himself to be more worthy, more deserving, and more fitting than others. He recognizes value in everyone, believes they are due consideration, and seeks to find a good place for them in a given context. There are numerous times in Jesus ministry where He is found paying attention to the needs, the pain, and the welfare of people. He reacted to their misery and deprivation by relieving their pain and bringing them into the mainstream of productive, meaningful life experience.

      The character trait in the seond beatitude is sorrow: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." This does not mean being sorrowful about disease, accidents, losses, backsets, and those kinds of afflictions that life deals out to everyone. Jesus speaks of the sorrow one feels because of the great prevalence of sin in the world that is continually devastating the lives of everyone, including one's own life. Because every soul is made in God's image, because one soul is worth more than all the  world, and because a soul is something eternal, one should feel great sorrow that sin constantly invades the soul. It is a spiritual contagion that sickens its victim in the worst way, in the part of his being that exists forever, beginning in this world and continuing through eternity.

      The attitude of the common worldly individual is, "It's every one for himself, and let the devil take the hindermost." This prevailing attitude is the opposite to the character trait revealed in the second beatitude. It is a grievous character flaw.  The further a sinner is removed from us, the less we care about him, and the better we feel because he is at a distance. We rarely look at him with sorrow and  have much concern that his soul is wrecked and headed into a dreadful, hopeless oblivion. Jesus had no sin, and therefore He could not sorrow over sin ruining Him. But the New Testament is replete with examples of the sorrow Jesus had for someone else whose life was being blasted and wasted by the action of sin within him. 

Character 7

In previous articles I have asserted that Christ is the only real model for good character.  By looking to Him in the way He lived and by considering carefully what He taught, we can discern the elements that constitute a good character. In this article, and those remaining on this subject, we will do just that. First, we shall examine a special section of one of His sermons, the one popularly known as the Sermon on the Mount, (Matthew 5-6-7). His introduction was a set of blessings He pronounced on the person who will incorporate into his life certain personality traits which He names. Since the word for "bless-ing" in Latin was beatus, and the Latin Vulgate had a great deal of influence on the earliest English translations of the Bible, these statements in Mat. 5:3-12 have for centuries been called the Beatitudes. Actually, these traits are essential components of real character. The emphasis will be upon the specific traits named and not upon the blessing that rewards the person who builds these qualities of spirit into his life. That is the emphasis for another study.

Note the words, "who builds these qualities of spirit into his life." They are not external things that are put on as clothing; they are spiritual things that are introduced into the heart to permeate thought, feel-ing, and perspective and thus reconstitute one's inner being into a far better person, even the best a mortal man can be. Character models that seek only to shape and regulate outward expression really do not produce genuine character. What Jesus teaches in the Beatitudes are to be taken into the heart and refashion it into a person whose inner and outer lives are congruent. (See Pro. 4:23.)

Reputation is often taken to be character, but it is not. Character is what you really are; reputation is what people think you to be. That may be said another way: Character is what God sees when He looks at you; reputation is what people see when they look at you. A person's life is at its best when reputation and character match, but that is seldom the way it is. And the mismatch goes both ways. Sometimes a person's reputation extends no further than his family and a small circle of friends and acquaintances. But he may have an excellent character. Because he is quiet, humble, and unobtrusive, not many people realize the excellence of his character. I have known many such people and considered them to be the solid foundation of their community and church. On the other hand, there are people whose reputation is big and widely known. They project themselves; they want to be seen and heard; they want to be up front of any group they are in. But if you measure them by the canon presented in the New Testament, you discover that, while big on reputation, they have significant deficiencies in character.

When you see people at church, you are only seeing one side of them. If you could see them in their routine at home, at work, in business, and in  public interaction, you might recognize quite a different person than you know at church. There are some people who do know them in both both settings, and they are well-acquainted with their duplicity; but for many reasons, they keep what they know private. But, the lord knows, for His knowledge of man is complete. We are told in Psa. 14:2 that "the Lord [looks] down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see if there are any who understand [margin: act wisely], who seek after God." A person of good character will have a reputation that matches his char-acter, at least by people who know him in all areas of life.

(* Beginning in the next article we will begin to consider the 8 essentail traits of good character taught by Jesus in the Beatitudes of Mat. 5:3-12).