Character verses Reputation is the question???

Character verses Reputation is the question???

Just last week someone posted on facebook the following quote by John Wooden, “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” The more I thought about that quote the more I found it to troubled me…Is it right to think of these two things as an either or question?? Is it simply one or the other or is it both or is John Wooden indeed right that reputation is a mere unimportant opinion?

There is no doubt in my mind that God is concerned about my CHARACTER and so should I. God is definitely more interested in developing my character than He is concerned about my comfort and that Godly CHARACTER ought to manifest itself in the growth of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:20). BUT should I NOT also be concerned about my REPUTATION?
There is a verse that has always challenged me. Among the seven Churches spoken to in Revelation Chapter 2 and 3 there is this word concerning the Church at Sardis..Read these words carefully! “To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a REPUTATION of being alive, but you are dead.” Rev.3:1. Sardis had a reputation!! Here a Church and the word on the street was, there is a buzz in that place..Looking for a Church? Sardis is the place to be, everything is happening there! That’s what people were saying! Sardis had a reputation of being alive! Wow! What a great testimony, or was it, it was its reputation but was it the truth? It was a man called Thomas Paine who made this observation, “Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.” And sure enough God’s view of this Church was very different to the reputation it had in the world? God’s view of this church was they were not alive at all, but rather they were DEAD!                                                                                                                                                     Which ONE is more important???                                                                                                        The reputation you have in the world or the character you have that is seen by God?                        Well that is an easy one to answer, the latter is eternally and infinitely of more importance than the former. Unfortunately this generation we live in that hankers after ‘celebrity’ (see last week’s blog) has made inroads into the Church..were many in leadership, it seems to me, whether in the pulpit or not consider gaining  a reputation to be something of great importance, while spending little time considering their character at all. Their appearance, their intonation, their performance and resulting praise and applause or sought after more I fear than humility or servanthood or even godliness.. I agree here with Abraham Lincoln who said,  “Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.” Dare I say that much of what we see and hear in Christian Leadership is far from being the real thing? No wonder our people are becoming what they are? As Robert Murray McCheyne declared, “If Satan can only make a covetous minister a lover of praise, of pleasure, of good eating, he has ruined your ministry…..It is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.”
Having said that I am still left with the original question? And while CHARACTER is utterly important I do believe that we must also ensure our reputation is that which equates with my walk with God and therefore Glorifies Him too. As one Elbert Hubbard once said, perhaps a little ‘tongue-n-cheek’, “Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.” This I think is the graver situation of them ALL!
Far too many are unconcerned about what people think of them to such an extent that they feel able to behave in whatever way they like and think it is OK! Ironically Sardis was a city built 1000 feet up on the side of a mountain and thought itself to be impregnable. However, the city did fall to enemies twice during its history both times the enemy sneaked in and opened the gates while the people of Sardis slept. Contented no doubt with the reputation!!!!!! Now there’s a great analogy is it not? 

 

You were in Church yesterday. You sang the loudest, you prayed the longest BUT today back in the office, on the shop floor, in the check-out queue you have the reputation of being quick tempered, impatient, rude, and ungracious and you don’t care what people think. BUT God cares, I think, His judgment is this, “The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Isaiah 29:13
OR….YOU DO care what people think BUT for all the wrong reasons, you want to be one of the crowd, don’t want to upset the applecart as it were, you’re the one always cracking the jokes, you’re the one who buys everyone the drink..You have a reputation…’The Party Animal’. Again Isaiah says, “And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it.” Isaiah 35:8……

 

Are you a fool?

You have a reputation, all of us do, we build that reputation over the time we spend with the people who give it to us…The question that should therefore and more importantly be asked is this??? Does that reputation match the character? That CHRACTER that YOU do need to be really concerned about and asking God by His Holy Spirit to develop in you and as a consequence will ensure that when it is said of you, He/she has a reputation of being alive…God says ‘I agree’  and I say Amen!
It is as one final quote puts it, “If I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of itself.” Words aptly spoken by the great Dwight L Moody.

Watch out for the Spin-doctors?

      
I found this picture and I am sorry I just could not help myself!!!

I have been following various blogs etc. since last week and this topic of ‘Why are Millennials leaving Church?’ Bit of an oxymoron is it not..most of them have never actually joined a Church from which to leave???? However the debate  the original blog sparked off  has become viral around the ‘religious world’ and there has developed a ‘slanging match between the countering sides’

I was tempted to put my tuppence worth into the arena then saw this photo and caught myself on!

All these ‘millennials’ referred to.... are people, young people growing up in a generation that has the need to experience celebrity and popularity and success. There is no longer room among this generation for the Olympic ideal..”It’s not the winning but the taking part that counts” No, no, no one remembers the runner-up. It’s all or nothing..It’s win, win, win..NO ONE LIKES A LOSER!           Yet the times we live in, of recession and financial upheaval make that dream so much less achievable BUT they try nonetheless..The result is few make it and the suicide rate among our young people goes sky high and the ones who do make it, make it to the front page of ‘Hello’ BUT only for a while until the next wannabe kicks them off the front page that is until they sink low enough in addiction and depression that they become front page news again for ALL the wrong reasons.          

It strikes me that these ‘Millennials’ have got themselves into a spiral that they have little control over. They don't realise that there are others orchestrating their lives for their own selfish ends and for so many on the merry-go-round of fame, fortune and fantasy they end up in a heap of divorce, debt and often drunkenness!!! Meanwhile we as ‘The Church’ are still doing what Amy Carmichael so graphically portrayed in an account of a vision she had one night when unable to sleep, “Then I saw more streams of people from all parts. They were blind, stone-blind; all made straight for the precipice edge. There were shrieks as they suddenly knew themselves falling, and a tossing up of helpless arms, clutching at empty air….On top the cliff she saw other groups of people, one of which was a group of christians with their backs to the cliff peacefully unawares of what was going on behind them but busy themselves making daisy chains?” (http://fixednails.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/amy-carmichaels-vision/)
Still making our 21st Century Daisy Chains meanwhile the generation now labeled ‘MILLENNIALS’ are as, Robert Murray McCheyne once described as hearing like, “The tramp, tramp, tramp of Christ-less feet” heading down the road to destruction and hell? That’s why this picture so grabbed my attention..All the sooth-sayers and spin-doctors of our world are peddling their glittering wares and WE are driving along oblivious to them waiting there at the side of the road to devour these very people for whom Jesus died and to whom HE has sent us out to reach.          

Waken up church! we are NOT in the spin-doctoring  business…Tell people the truth..I know..they don’t want to hear it....but they need to.. "Sin will take THEM farther than THEY want to go, keep THEM longer than THEY want to stay, and cost THEM more than THEY want to pay." Always has done, always will do!
The answer??? “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23

If you would like to know more about God’s amazing gift of Salvation please feel welcome to contact me at adrian@cristianoscommunitychurch.com

What is alien to the millennials?

I found one of those ‘funny church’ signs the other day and used it for a post in the church facebook page. The sign made a very important point and one that I wanted to discuss further in this blog. We have become so concerned and centred, I think, on numbers and wrestling with the apparent decline in the numbers attending church!! Mind you if you go by statistics and you know what they say about those, according to a recent poll in England there are more people going to church on a Sunday than are attending football matches…Maybe that’s only because tickets have got too expensive for the ordinary man???? No I am only joking!!!!!

Last week I’ve picked up more than a few articles on this subject, one of those was a blog by Rachel Evans on CNN Belief Blog entitled ‘Why millennials are leaving Church’? I didn’t even know who or what ‘millennials’ were or are? I discovered it’s the term that encompasses the generation that is growing up now! I.E. The next generation that we must reach for the church to continue????       I’m not answering the questions raised in Rachel’s blog that was done brilliantly by another; http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevinwax/2013/08/01/why-millennials-are-leaving-the-church-a-response-to-rachel-held-evans/
Another blog report I read was a response to an editorial that appeared recently in The Independent Newspaper in London. It was throwing a punch at the Archbishop of Canterbury and his involvement in politics. That resulted from Justin Welby’s position in the House of Lords where he was questioning the Governments policy on poverty and welfare. The response I read was from Nick Baines ‘The musings of a restless Bishop’ blog;  http://nickbaines.wordpress.com/2013/07/29/religion-and-politics/  It to is worth a read.

The point I found in both these articles was that there are people who will NEVER come to church. They will find a reason that is if they need to, not to come and the general public opinion regarding church is negative and it will take every opportunity to take a swipe at it? Well what’s new???

If I go back to where I started and that church sign at the top. We have become so preoccupied at attracting people in that we have, I believe, lost our way and lost our integrity on the way?                  I understand completely the necessity to maintain a grip on communicating in a modern era but some of the things that have been tried, adopted or considered verge on the ridiculous.                               Do we believe that when God set out the paradigm for reaching the world with the Gospel as He did in His Word, that He was not aware of the technological era that would be the 21st Century or that the citizens of this century would be so erudite that we need to espouse a more scholarly approach? REALLY?
My mind is clear on this, I believe the Scriptures when they say, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?.... So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Romans 10:14+17 therefore “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” Romans 1:16

The need of the day is for the Church to stand firm and preach the Word of God and I mean the whole Word..One more article of interest to this debate was one posted today entitled. ‘I wonder if Sunday School is destroying our kids’? http://beliefsoftheheart.com/2013/07/23/i-wonder-if-sunday-school-is-destroying-our-kids-2/
Highlighted in that is the way in which we portray bible Characters in their Heroic garb ONLY without mentioning their flaws or failings..It is so important for the Church to preach the whole counsel of the Word of God, that way it will maintain its integrity and that way and that way ONLY  has God promised bring about His purpose. “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;  it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:10-11

It is not for me or any of us to get hung up on numbers. It is for those of us who lead to ensure that we do so according to the Bible and that for me is, Preach the Word, in season and out of season, keep preaching the Word, ALL of it, believing absolutely that God is building His Church and never mind absentee millennials or newspaper editorials, the power of Hell itself will NEVER prevail against it..BY all means examine methods and programs, but never think it will by my cleverness that people will be attracted to the Gospel, it will be as we do this, sow the seed (The Word…Mark 4:14) be faithful to doing just that and leave the growing to God by the power of His Holy Spirit!

Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one?  I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. 1 Corintians 3:5-7
And the perfect illustration of that is the picture Jesus Himself portrayed….Jesus also said, “The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows, but he does not understand how it happens.  The earth produces the crops on its own. First a leaf blade pushes through, then the heads of wheat are formed, and finally the grain ripens. And as soon as the grain is ready, the farmer comes and harvests it with a sickle, for the harvest time has come.” Mark 4:26-29