Character

In continuing on about discipleship, I wanted to share some ideas that I had on the 4 components of discipleship (character, relationship, authority and reproduction/discipleship). Specifically, in this post, I want to talk about character.

God says in the Bible, "be holy as I am holy." There is no question about God's standards for character. In God's original intent, when God created Adam and Eve, He created them without sin and He expected them to stay that way, but they sinned and didn't stay that way. But God's initial plan for Adam and Eve is that He wanted them to be representatives of His character on the earth. This also, is God's plan for Christians and the place that we want to lead our disciples to as we teach them and live life with them.

Another interesting thing about character is that God seems more concerned about the heart then about the outward actions. It's about heart motivation and not necessarily about behavior. In Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, he talks about how the law says, "Don't do this, don't do that", but he told his disciples that what's more important is what's in the heart - and that is equivalent to sin. Jesus introduced a higher standard of holiness, inner holiness, not just outward obedience to the law. Jesus also taught that the greatest commandment is to love God and to love others - motivations that start in the heart. Even when Jesus confronted someone's behavior, he did it to expose what was in their heart. Take for example, the rich young ruler. The reason that Jesus said that it would be difficult for him to enter into the kingdom of Heaven was not because of the amount of money that he had, but because his money was where his treasure was. The fruit of Spirit are also inner issues of the heart.

So, as we disciple people in the area of character, I think that it's important that we do not concern ourselves so much with the outer actions, but we need to be led by the Holy Spirit as we develop relationships with others and help to lead them in discovering their own heart motivations. This is where we really get to know people, we discover what is in them, and we get to share in what God is doing in their hearts.

And as we disciple/mentor people with a love for their hearts, God opens up our hearts and fills us with compassion. We will see past all of the outward things like actions, behaviors, dress, etc. and see people's hearts the way that God sees them.