LIFE CHARACTER - A PRIME CONTRIBUTOR TO SUCCESS

Our world today worships effectiveness. It is assumed that human ability is the main contributor to success whether in an individual or a corporate level. Thus the highly-skilled are highly sought after. If one performs well, he or she will command a handsome income. One’s worth is often measured by performance. And performance can be derived from skills, training or experience.

Though God looks for fruitfulness and expects His children to be effective, He looks for faithfulness and for Him the ultimate source of fruitfulness is not human but Him.

Anointing - Heaven-Earth Joint Venture

One thing to remember is that the key to success in the Kingdom is divine anointing. Anointing is the supernatural enablement God gives to every individual called by Him and who responds to that call to fulfill His purpose. When God anoints, one can go beyond what is normally expected. God chooses to anoint those He has chosen and willing to cooperate with Him. Anointing is God working through humanity.

In God, we will never fail when we are in His plan. We think we fail when we face challenges and we look at our situations through human lenses. But in God’s eyes, that is not failure. God’s measurement is different. He looks at the long-term and not at the immediate. Fruitfulness is not necessarily always quantitative but also qualitative.

God looks on the heart

Browsing through Scriptures, we come across capable people who were used greatly of God. Among the best examples was the apostle Paul. He was born in a noble family, highly educated and passionate in what he believed. Before his conversion, he was a leading persecutor of the church. After he had met Jesus, he became the huge advocate of Christ. It is clear that his natural abilities were utilised to the utmost for the extension of the Kingdom.

On the other hand, many great men of God in the Bible were not exceptionally talented like Paul. Moses was emotional and insecure. Often times he was unsure about his competence. Yet God powerfully worked through him and he was recognised as the greatest prophet in Israel (Deut. 34:10-12). Joseph was a Hebrew man who gained highest achievement in the foreign land. One common factor that made God pick them up and use them mightily was their heart quality.

In spite of all his imperfections, Moses obeyed God fully. He loved and led his people patiently and passionately. Joseph was faithful in everything that was put in his hands. He kept his heart right from beginning until the end despite a series of unjust treatments. There are many other stories in the Bible that show us how God sees the importance of heart but none can perhaps compare with the story of David.

God established the Israel nation and He was their God-King. However, the Israelites wanted to have a human king in addition to Yahweh. God therefore anointed Saul, a man of great stature, good warrior and fit to be a king. Sadly Saul disobeyed God. God then removed him from his kingship and chose a man, small in size but having a great heart, named David to replace him.

Samuel who was assigned by God to anoint the new king, in his human thinking, looked for a man with great outward appearance. But God’s idea was different. He looked deep into human heart.

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1 Sam 16:7, ESV)

Because of David’s good heart, God chose him as the new king. David knew God’s heart so well that he was known as a man after God’s heart. Subsequently he became the person God used as a standard for godly monarchy. God compared the following kings with David. What God looked for first and foremost was not their abilities but loyalty to Him.

If we examine his life carefully, we will find that David was not a man without blemish. He took Uriah’s wife to be his own and murdered him to cover his guilt. At the height of his career, he became proud. Though he was tempted and fell just like you and me, he always had a repentant heart.

That God primarily looks for life character is affirmed by the fact about the appointment of eldership in the New Testament.

After a number of churches were planted, Paul had to appoint elders to oversee them. The qualification of elders he had in mind as seen in his letters to Timothy and Titus is all related to life character (1 Tim. 3:1-13; Tit. 1:5-9). For Paul, what matters most is not the abilities or skill but life character of the leaders.

Paul instructed Timothy not to hastily appoint a new believer as an elder but to make sure that his life was right before God. Or he might be proud and stumble.

He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. (1 Tim. 3:6, ESV)

The main issue here is not about how long the person has been a believer but how humble he or she is as a believer. The person might be a long-time Christian. But unless one is humble, he or she shouldn’t be appointed as a leader. This is not only to protect the church but also the person.

A changing heart

One hard fact is that people’s heart can change over time. I have seen people who had started well. But at some point in their lives, they went off. Our good heart in the beginning doesn’t always necessarily guarantee a good end.

Look at Solomon. He began as a man who followed God faithfully. He asked for God’s wisdom so that he would govern the nation successfully and his request was granted. But as he grew older, his heart changed and he eventually drifted away from God. Why? It was his ungodly environment. He married many foreign women who turned his heart away from God (1 King 11:1-8).

We all get influenced by our environment, good or bad. That’s why fellowshipping with brothers and sisters in the church helps keep our spiritual life sound. Fellowshipping with leaders of HIM around the world always refreshes and inspires me. That’s why it always helps for leaders of small and stand alone churches to fellowship with other leaders in a conference. That’s how we can spiritually cover one another.

One thing that brought many leaders to spiritual downfalls is pride. For some reasons, every leader who has become successful will be tested in this area. It is harder for them to listen to advices or suggestions as before. They tend not to see their weaknesses or even mistakes they have made. Therefore we have to make extra effort to keep ourselves humble when God allows us to succeed.

Love of the world is another reason for leadership failure. Judas is a classic example. He was chosen by Jesus to carry out His mission. I believed Jesus chose him because he had many good traits in his life including a good heart. However, Judas didn’t manage to overcome his greed and the Devil got him.

You and I are merely humans who have weaknesses. Yet we don’t need to fall if we can handle those weak areas. On the other hand, no matter how long we have been a Christian or how much we have done for the Kingdom, we can fall astray one day if we don’t live our life right before God every day.

Bear in mind. The day you think you are firm is the day you are prone to fall (1 Cor. 10:12).

Searching our heart

Though positionally we have been made new when we became born again (2 Cor. 5:17), experientially we are not yet perfect. Life transformation is a life-long process. It takes time. As long as we are still in this earthly body, there are always areas to improve in our lives.
You might be surprised to learn that our hearts can be deceitful. We tend to see ourselves better than we truly are. We might fail to notice the imperfection we have. We want to do good but we end up in something evil. Even Jeremiah was astonished by this reality.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jer 17:9, ESV)

You and I need to be true to ourselves. We should always search our heart and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal anything that is not pleasing to Him. All of us should keep ourselves humble all the time, knowing that we might be wrong, and be willing to say sorry to God and to other people that we have wronged.

One challenge as leaders is that we seem to be busy all the time. We rush from one meeting to another. We lead people. We counsel people. We challenge people to be involved in church work. We solve the problems. We talk a lot. What we do need is to quiet down, examine our heart and talk to God.

As leaders, we naturally want to help our people to walk right with God. What about ourselves? Do you care enough for yourselves?

When you read or listen to the Word of God, do not only look for new knowledge. Check if there is anything you can improve to be closer to God’s standard. Allow God’s Word to examine and transform your lives (Heb. 4:12). Before you go to bed each night, spend some time to evaluate yourselves. Think about what you have done that day. If there is anything that was incorrect, ask God for a change.

I believe this is not new to you who are seasoned believers. You must have heard about it several times. However, humans tend to neglect basic things simply because they are basic. But this basic reminder will save your lives in the long run if you take heed to it.

Mentor - spiritual helper

No one can deny that we all have blind spots. There are things about us that we can’t see ourselves but outsiders can see more clearly. Sometimes we think we are okay but they can see the flaws in us. This is why we need a mentor who is mature and one who can see the rights and wrongs in us so that they can speak into our lives and pray for us.

Strange still, we know rationally that it is beneficial to be corrected and we are willing to be so. But in reality we might get irritated when we are corrected because of the words they use, their voice tone or the timing of their correction. Though the form of correction is important, I think that is minor. Its essence is more critical. We have to get ready all the times so that we won’t be too surprised when we are corrected next time.

The ideal is that our mentors are involved in our daily living and ministry so that they can witness what is going on with us. Nevertheless, not all of us have the luxury of having our mentors being with us physically on a daily basis. Therefore we should be open and share our lives to our mentor.

Disciple-making

We are in the business of disciple-making. If we have to choose, we should train people with godly character rather than great capability. In the long run, those who are less capable but exhibit good life character will achieve higher and last longer than those who are capable but have character flaw.

Now you may ask-But who among us is perfect and have no flaw? If we only train those who are godly, we may end up training none. My question is-Is the person humble enough and willing to change? Does he or she acknowledge his or her character weakness. If the answer is ‘yes’, I believe God can deal with it.

I am so privileged to serve the Lord together with you. My prayer for you is that you will run this race until the very end of your days and we will receive the rewards together when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.

Together in the vision,

Pastor Prakich
Hope Europe Website

Source: Euro Vision May 2010