Webster defines character as “an individual’s pattern of behaviour or personality.”Each one of us has a different character—traits that make us different from anyone else. WE can recognize these traits from the very start. Christians are to have certain traits that make them distinguishable from those who are without. Notice four character traits of a Christian.
A Christian loves. “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” (1 John 4:7). A Christian is a child of God, born of God, a son of God. Being such, he is instructed to love because God loves us, and God is love. We are to love God and man. Jesus said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God… Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:36-39).
It would be ludicrous for us to profess to be children of God and then hate our fellow man. John said that those who do not love do not know God and those who say they love God and hate their brothers are liars. You cannot love God and hate man (1 John 4:8) “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” (1 John 4:20) “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” It is very hard to love especially those who are unloveable; but God loves the unloveable and expects us to do the same. We love God and man because He first loved us and gave himself for us. A trait of every Christian is love.
A Christian forgives. Forgiveness of our sins is the basis of our reaching Heaven. However, we are given a condition for forgiveness: we must first forgive others. Jesus said, “but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses, neither will you Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:15). Here Christ makes forgiveness of others a constant precondition of man’s forgiveness by the Father. With Christ as our example and God as our strength, we must learn to forgive and forget. The word “forgive” literally means to send away, to blot out, to obliterate. God forgives and forgets our sins; we should forgive and forget the sins of the brother who sins against us. How could we expect the love of God to sink deep into our hearts if our hearts are so hard we cannot forgive others? Forgiving others becomes much easier when we come to know the peace that comes from having our sins forgiven by the Father. Be forgiving and be forgiven.
A Christian fights. We may think of the Christian as a fighter, but the life of a Christian is a life of war—war against the evil works of darkness. Paul wrote that we should put on the whole armour of God so we could withstand the fiery darts of the wicked
(Ephesians 6:13) “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” Then, he tells us how we can identify the enemy. They are not flesh and blood; they are powers, principalities, rulers of darkness, spiritual wickedness
(Ephesians 6:12) “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
In short, anything that is contrary to the holy ordinances of Almighty God is an enemy of God and, therefore, our enemy because we are God’s children. We fight them until we die or until Christ comes again. We must be consistent in our battles. We cannot war against sin today and then turn and allow it to run unchallenged in another situation. If it is sin, it is an enemy of God and an enemy of the Christian. We are marching in the battlefields with Christ as our commander, waging war against the unfruitful works of darkness, assured of a victory over sin in the last day when Christ returns with His mighty angels “And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.” (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10) but, until that day we must wage a ceaseless battle against sin, bringing the lost to Christ.
A Christian lives. We are dead to the world but alive to Christ. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20). “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21). We live as Christians on this earth for Christ and His cause. WE are dead to sin and to the world but alive anew in Christ, working for the furtherance of His kingdom. Those who remain faithful will live forever. “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
We love because Christ loves; we forgive because Christ forgives; we fight because Christ fights; and we live because Christ lives. These are the four traits of a Christian—four traits of Christ. This is the character of a Christian. Christian, are these your character?