character

this week at our new denver men's bible study we talked about character.  what does it mean to be a man of character (or a woman)?  we tossed around some ideas of what we thought it meant to be a man of character.

you know:

• honesty
• courage
• doing what is right when no one's watching
• love
• patience 
• surrounding yourself with other people of high character (though this was debated for awhile)
• keeping your word (let your yes be yes and your no be no)

photo via

we spent some time talking about other men of character.  like, who from the bible had upright character.  interestingly enough, most men we look to, outside of jesus, had some major flaw in their character.  they weren't perfect.  just like you and me.  i'm not sure about you, but that gives me some hope!! 

it's funny though.  it wasn't until the end of our group that we recognized we missed one really big trait of character.  servanthood.  jesus modeled that one pretty well for us, right?  why do we forget that?  is it that it shows weakness to serve others?  is it that we're too me focused?  or is it that it's just too hard?  

who can we choose to serve this week?  because, as humans, often times serving is a choice.  if we stripped away all the niceness of ourselves it goes something like this: "i love the idea of serving...but only if it's super convenient to me.  only if it's easy.  only if it fits into my schedule."  

i'm just gonna throw this out there: working on our character, trying to be more like christ isn't easy, it's not convenient, it's not easy.  apart from a miracle, which is possible, it's a choice. 

take a look around your life.  where can you step in to opportunities to serve?  to model what jesus modeled so well for us...will you consider making the choice to serve?   

much love.