Character Filled Life

We are all but humans...

Indeed it is easy to live life as it is. We were born gifted with a freedom to make our own choices. And our choices, more often than not, depends on our human nature where we prefer the "easy way out", rather than choosing what is right. This is a normal reaction of a man faced with any situation at hand. And this is just being human.

But, a person is distinguished by his character. And to have character takes numerous effort - it is hard.

Consider patience. Everyday, when we are tempted to complain and grumble, it takes real labor to choose to be patient. Patience is developed in a man as a result of his reaction to circumstances that deals with this virtue.

Character is neither an inborn talent nor inherited from our parents. A person has to undergo a series of testing and challenges to develop his character. When we are faced with a dilemma, our character is being molded.

We now live in a world where anything is acceptable and things we have done can always be justified. We justify bribery, by blaming the lawful but difficult process one has to undergo, we justify that diligence in the workplace is in accordance to whether how deserving who is in charge over us or whether we believe we are justly compensated, we justify ill-treatment to others because they treated us badly first, and the reasons go on and on. But then again, it takes character to be able to defy all of these. But nobody said that this is not complicated.

A character filled life is strict. Its path is narrow and more often than not leads to suffering. Everyday, we face countless encounters where we make choices. On the street, in the workplace, in our home, in our community... everywhere as a matter of fact.

To be truly a person with character doesn't depend on how intelligent or rich you are. It depends on what kind of a heart you have. Because it definitely is an attitude of the heart. Otherwise, we might as well call it hypocrisy. For, when our motives are not right whatever outward actions we do, it still is hypocrisy. Nevertheless, to perfectly mold our character we expect to have a burden and a struggle.

In a book entitled "Live Like a King" by Warren Wiersbe, he stated;

" At some point in life ech one of us must decide what is his highest joy, for the thing that delights us directs us. Generally speaking a child finds his delight in what he has. A young man delights in what he does and an adult in what he is.

The first lives for possessions, the second for the experiences and the third for character. We do not condemn the child or the youth for so living because neither have reached maturity, but we could certainly wonder at an adult who lived on those levels".

How true isn't it?

Indeed character may be synonimously linked to suffering, struggle and effort but its outcome far outweighs what is in this world.

The point in all of these is this, that our loving God is more concerned with our character rather than our comfort.

I am not saying that He will not provide for our needs. This is far from the truth . God is our provider and He knows even the desires of our heart.

However, God will go the extra mile to develop our character for us to be more like Him, like Jesus Christ. We were not left with this pursuit alone. God sent His son Jesus Christ as our example and He sent us a Helper which is the Holy Spirit to be our guide that will keep on encouraging and reminding us to keep on pursuing the real purpose in life - a character filled life.

Overwhelming Reality

Psalm 77: 1-3 (NKJV) I cried out to God with my voice—To God with my voice; And He gave ear to me. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; My soul refused to be comforted. I remembered God, and was troubled; I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed.

Overwhelmed... That is how we feel. Overwhelmed from the reality of it all.

With all the difficulties in life, who wouldn't? We ponder about God and what He offers. His love, His compassion and His mercy. These truths against what we are facing now leave us to doubt Him.

We had hoped that some situations in our lives would change the way we would expect it to be. But it had not. Thus, leading us to question Him. With the reality of our financial crisis, broken relationships in the family and discontentment with our day job, it is hard for us to trust God. Our initial reaction is for us to tend to focus on finding solutions to our immediate problems, taking God out of the picture. It seemed that His principles and wisdom do not apply to us. It is not logical, we say, and so, it is not applicable in our situation.

Fact is, there is a struggle within us. Sometimes we focus too much on the problem at hand that we do not let the hand of God handle the matter. Struggle comes when we try to choose to lay it all on God. We all want to be in control, and have a hand on things. We like to control the wheel of our lives and more often than not we end up more miserable than where we started. We were so wrapped up with our reality that we have failed to see the reality of God's truth.


Consider some of God's spoken words.

Nahum 1:7 (NIV) The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust him.

Psalm 27:14 (NKJV) Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!

Psalm 46:1 (NIV) God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

Psalm 138:7 (TLB) Though I am surrounded by troubles, You will bring me safely through them. You will clench your fist against my angry enemies! Your power will save me. 

John 14:18 (KJV) I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you. 

1 Peter 5:7 (NIV) Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. 

These are the promises of God and more. He knew all along that we will face suffering and He knows that we will have a moment of doubt. But He encourages us to hang on to every word that He says. He cares for you and me. He will give us the strength to overcome the obstacles in life. He is our Helper in the midst of our trouble. God did not promise that we would be free from suffering when we follow Him, but He promised that He will be right there with us in our moment of weakness and confusion.

When life seemed pointless I encourage us all to look up to Him and ask for His help. There is no denying that we all face real problems, but we should also realize that God is real and He speaks the truth when He said He will be our ever-present help in trouble.

Starting a Relationship with God: The Bible and Prayer

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17 NKJV)


We are called by God to repentance. We find forgiveness by sincerely leaving a life of sin and humbling ourselves in coming to God through His Son Jesus Christ. Christ is the only way to salvation. His death and resurrection is enough for us to be counted worthy. And this is enough to set us free from the bondage of sin and death. And yes we cannot do this on our own, even in repenting, we need God's help. But we should rejoice because we have found a new life in Him!

Now that we have a wonderful life ahead, what should we do next?

I do believe that the next big thing that we have to do is start getting to know God in a more intimate way. And that is through prayer and reading of God's word. The bible is the source of God's words. The truth about who He is and the works of Jesus Christ had been written for us to come to know Him even more. It is amazing to realize that God did not leave us groping for directions. Instead He makes clear the path that we are to undertake through His declared words in the bible. Discernment and understanding of the scripture is also by the grace of God through the Holy Spirit who is in us once we accept Jesus Christ as our savior. And through prayer we declare His grace, mercy and love. We praise him according to who He is. And we bring to Him all our supplications. Literally, we converse with Him. We pour out our soul to Him with no restrictions.

As 1Peter 5:7 says " Cast all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you."

Yet we will sometimes doubt. However I am confident that the cure for doubt is to run to scriptures and hold on to the promise that God brings to pass what He said He would bring to pass no matter what. Truly, life in God is secure and peaceful. Yet He does not promise a life without suffering or trials. Instead He promises to keep us in His love and strength even in the midst of uncertainty.

God knows your deepest thoughts and even desires. And because we have a relationship with Him, He wants us to pour out our heart to Him and to be honest about our frailty and weaknesses. He wants us to depend on Him and not on our own strength. He wants us to be intimate with Him and to be passionate about Him. Regardless of what situation we are in today, He wants us to know that we could depend on Him and on His words.

Knowing that He loves us dearly should motivate us to commit our lives to Him even more.

Man's Biggest Problem and the Evidence of God's Lovingkindess: Jesus Christ

Who is Jesus Christ? What is it about Him that is so important for us to understand?

God loves us. He wants us to have an abundant life through Him. However there is one problem with man, and that is SIN. Yes, we are all sinners. We are separated from God because of it. And there is a grave consequence of sin and that is death.

Historically sin started when Adam and Eve - the first man and woman created by God- ate from the tree of life. God said they should not eat from the tree of life because they would die. The serpent however deceived them, he said "you will not surely die!" But because they disobeyed and ate of the fruit, they were cast out from the presence of God (Genesis 3). This is the fall of man because consequently "man will surely die" as opposed to what the serpent had said.

There are two types of death, one is the "physical" death which all of us will go through. But the other type is more serious and that is "spiritual" death or the eternal separation from God. Eternal means forever cast out from God. Cast out does not mean we will roam around from one place to another and denied entrance to heaven, rather we will be thrown into the lake of fire forever. (Revelation 21:8). This is what we commonly now call hell.

Therefore, we may like it or not we are destined to hell because we are all sinners.

Romans 3:10 There is none righteous not even one;

Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;

James 2:10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all

We cannot save ourselves, because we are sinful in nature. There are no amount of good works one can make in order to save himself because at one point or another we will fail. This is the most unfortunate state of mankind.

Because of God's real love for us, He made a solution to a somewhat hopeless tragedy man is facing. He sent His Son Jesus Christ. What is so important for us to understand is that Jesus Christ is God Himself in the flesh. He is God.

Jesus Christ died on the cross as a penalty for our sin. Yes each of our sins have already been paid for by the death of Jesus Christ.

Imagine yourself in the brink of bankruptcy as an example, there is no way for you to pay-off all your debts. You are desperate and you have no way out. Creditors are after you left and right, some even threaten to take your life. Then came this person paid-off all your debts just like that no questions asked. What will you do?

Jesus Christ did the same for us. We are a slave to sin and there is no way out. But God, with no questions asked gave up His Son who sacrificed His life for us to have this freedom from sin. This is a gift from God because of His love.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

How will you respond?

Just like the person who has been saved from the brink of bankruptcy, do you think he would remain desperate and lost despite the fact that his debts have been paid-off? I think he would rejoice that he is now free. I assume he would even follow that man and maybe even serve him with gratitude.

How about us? How would we respond to the truth that we are made righteous before God not because of what we did but because of what Jesus Christ did? Will we accept it? This is a gift. We may opt not to accept it since God bestowed upon us the freedom of choice. We have to consider that despite of God's love toward us, He too will not hold back your freedom. He may find means and ways to pursue you and yes He will, but ultimately the choice is yours.

Truth is, eternal life and hell is real. God's only solution is Jesus Christ. There is no other way for us to be saved except through faith and belief in the works of Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ Himself.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.;

Jesus said in

John 14:6 I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.

Everyday we always have a choice to make. To believe and to have faith in Christ and what He offers to us is also a choice. And that choice is accompanied with the decision to leave behind a sinful life and to live in accordance to God's desires. Our sins have been forgiven already and God waits for us to take that step of faith: to leave the life of sin and to live a life guided by God. This is a start of a relationship with God, a life committed to Him. God knows we are not perfect but the sincerity of our faith will move us to live lives that show our gratitude to God for His free gift of eternal life.

If you want to express your faith in Jesus Christ, pray a simple prayer- humbling ourselves that we are sinners and that we need God and we believe and accept that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty of our sins. That we accept this gift. Let us also ask God to help us live a life according to His will. Let us thank Him for His gift of eternal life.

Hope this guides us in our prayer of accepting God's gift. And I hope that by choosing to believe in this truth we may now live a victorious life in Christ Jesus.

The Truth of God's Love

One truth about God that we might not be aware of, maybe just take for granted or easily forget. That is the truth about God's love toward us.

Yes, you might be a bit cynical. Or maybe you would say to yourself  "I've heard this before..". Or maybe questions pop-up in your head like "if He loves me.. how come I'm in the middle of a crisis, or why am I in pain, or why doesn't He hear me?". Or "I have done terrible things in my life how could He love me?"

One thing is for sure though, no matter what our view towards this truth is, it does not change the fact that He loves us, and that love is unconditional. Yes, unconditional- meaning, His love is not based on who we are, what we did in the past or what we are about to do in the future. It is not only for those whom we think are "good people" ,(which is not true by the way. No one is good, because the bible says, " All have fallen short of the glory of God" Romans 3:23). But,  it is based on Who God is and His character.

This changes everything doesn't it?

The nearest analogy of God's love is a parent's love. If you are a parent, will you stop loving your son or daughter simply because he/she did something bad? Of course not, sure it will break your heart, but will it change the fact that you love your child and wanted him/her to have a good life? Of course not. The same is true with God. Although we, as humans, are capable of loving someone- our children, parents, husbands, wives, "despite of", we may also fail in this area. Children hurt their parents, parents forsake their children, husbands or wives become unfaithful with each other and so on and so forth. Also, our love is not only conditional but it is also mercurial. We love based on feelings and emotions that can change from one moment to the next. But God's love toward us is unshakeable. It is not dependent on us but on His mercy, lovingkindness and His grace. We may have done things that may hurt God but He loves us just the same. He loves us and He wants us to believe in this truth which He declared through His word.

Psalm 8:4 What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?

Romans 5:8, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Hope that this will change our outlook towards life and towards God. God loves us dearly that He died for us on the cross. And He always waits for you and me to call on Him, He longs to have a real relationship with us. He wants to take care of us. I urge us not to doubt His love towards us.

God's Lovingkindness

Have you ever been hurt by someone or betrayed by a loved one? True enough this happens to each one of us and it is inevitable.

Perhaps there is a feeling of emptiness inside of us that we just could not shake off and so, we resolve to empty pursuits-relationships, career and material wealth.

But God offers His love towards us, incomprehensible and yet real. It is lasting and will never end. It gives the rest and the peace we are searching for. This is the one love that directs our lives to the right path. The only love that remains faithful despite our weaknesses and unfaithfulness.

In our hopelessness, God will rescue us from a muddy situation. Our God is an awesome God. Great is His  lovingkindness, that He will not allow us to be cast down.