Unquestionable Character

I am working through a devotional series called Unquestionable Character.  It's actually found within a Bible app on my iPhone/iPad, which makes it very accessible.  So if you have one of those two devices, you should look into that app.  There are several different devotional series and surely one to fit you!

Anyway... Unquestionable Character... tough subject.  Character is one of the most important aspects of being a true Christian, in my opinion.  I remember a Tommy Nelson study we did in my singles group called A Life Well Lived.  It was an eye opener for me.  First of all, Tommy Nelson is a magnificent teacher.  I always related well to his sermons.  When he spoke about character, and what God wanted for us as Christians, it just stirred up the Holy Spirit inside me.  It gave me a strong desire to seek the character God wanted me to have.  You know, be the Christian behind closed doors that you are in public and at church.  I know there are few out there that actually have this quality.  But that doesn't mean that we can't all work toward it.

What caught my eye today was this passage...

2 Timothy 3:1-5

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

Wow.  Doesn't that sound a lot like today's world.  People immediately start popping in my mind when I read that list... which is so judgmental and sinful of me... I need to remember that that list could easily be describing me!! We are all sinful, and we can all find ourselves somewhere in that verse.  If we work toward the unquestionalable character God would have for us, we will find ourselves further and further from that list.  

The most interesting part to me is the last verse.  Have nothing to do with such people.  As Christians, we know surrounding ourselves with people that are satisfied in their sin will cause us to fall into sin as well.  There is a big difference in reaching out to non-Christians and dwelling with non-Christians.  In that last verse, Paul is warning us about the dangers of dwelling with people that will pull us into sin.  As I think about this, it reminds me so much of lessons and sermons I heard when I was in high school and college.  Those were the days that we were essentially picking and choosing friends.  Now it doesn't seem like such an issue... sometimes I feel like I have like 5 friends, and they're all Christians.  But the truth is, I have friends that are strong Christians, and are willing to pull me up and ask me the tough questions.  "Why haven't you been to church?"  "Have you prayed about it?"  Sometimes I'm not even that friend... maybe I'm never that friend.  But I want to be.  And those are the ones to surround ourselves with.

Sorry to get preachy, but sometimes Bible passages make me feel like the end of the world could be tomorrow... or this year (ha ha Myans).  I know the Bible says, "No one knows about that day or hour, not even  the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."  Heck, if Jesus doesn't even know when the world will end, you KNOW the Myans don't know!!  But still, it does look a lot like the end of times when we look around, so we better get our stuff together.

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Let's talk a little bit about those resolutions... I drank a Dr. Pepper last night.  I totally talked myself into it because I was sick all day.  I thought my wimpy body deserved it.  (Broken resolution #1, if you count Dr. Pepper in the "coke" category.)

It's day 3 of the new year and I have yet to perform any physical activity past getting up a million times to blow my nose (why don't I just move the toilet paper closer to me? I do not know.).  But I am going to the mall today, so let's just say I plan on mall walking from one end to the other. (No exercise counts as broken resolution #2.)

I did half way clean part of the house yesterday.  Ha ha, half-way-part-of sounds like I didn't clean a darn thing, but I'm going to say I cleaned!

After reading this blog, I think you can tell that I'm attempting to work on resolution #5.

As for being a "fun mom"... you'll have to ask Madeley.  But, I did read a lot of books yesterday, which is all she really wants anyway.

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And I would just LOVE to trash talk The Bachelor with you, but I don't think it really follows with the theme of this blog post, ha ha.  I will say this though... he kept Jenna.  Whew, what was he thinking???

Thanks for reading!!!