GBC Community Update: What does it mean to be a person of character?

Good morning.  I hope you all had a pleasant weekend.  I’m going to be starting a new series of thoughts today on the issue of character.  As I’ve watched leaders, politicians, celebrities and others grapple with the reality of the pandemic we’re still in I’ve been disappointed, frankly, by the lack of character I’ve seen. So, I want to spend some time looking at this issue and encourage all of us to develop Godly character.
 
 
Return to In-Person Services
I mentioned in passing last week that we’re looking at resuming in-person services outdoors when the province moves into Phase 1 of our re-opening. I’m happy to report our ministry program team and production team have been hard at work planning to make this happen. I’ve had the opportunity to be in some of the conversations about this and I’m excited by the opportunity this presents. We have a CAN DO attitude here at GBC so you’ll be finding out details soon on what this will look like. Here’s a teaser though: we’ll be holding services in the main parking lot (like our Christmas services) but these will be livestreamed as well. I can’t wait!
 
 
Join in Prayer                                                               
The GBC Prayer Group meets in the side auditorium on TUESDAY AFTERNOONS at 3:30pm. We continue to pray as prompted by God’s Word, intercede for our church family and city, and enjoy the encouragement of God’s presence. Please join us!
 
 
Thought for the Day:  What does it mean to be a person of character?
I’m going to be looking at the issue of character over the next couple of weeks.  I’ll look at an element of character and then some practical tips (like in the book of James!) on how to grow in character.
To start with, character is defined as the attributes and features that make up a person. That’s good, but I like to take it one step further: character is ‘moral excellence and firmness. strength of moral fiber.’ Pastor and author A.W. Tozer described character as “the excellence of moral beings.”
As the excellence of gold is its purity and the excellence of art is its beauty, so the excellence of people is in their character. Persons of character are noted for their honesty, ethics, and charity. Descriptions such as “man of principle” and “woman of integrity” are assertions of character. A lack of character is moral deficiency, and persons lacking character tend to behave dishonestly, unethically, and uncharitably. It’s pretty straightforward but hard to attain!
Here's your first tip on growing in character: Read! 
Let's say you get an e-mail from one of your close friends you haven't heard from in a while. What do you do? You read it, of course!  God wrote several letters to us, including James which we’re currently studying.  When was the last time you read them? We develop character by understanding how God sees it and then applying this to our lives. Make sense?  Good!  But don't take out your dusty Bible and read it from cover-to-cover tonight. No guilt trip here. Instead, find and following a reading plan but also read other books, like devotionals, studies or commentaries that repeatedly talk about and look at the Bible; then you should read chapters of the Bible dealing with the issue in your devotional.
A good standard of Bible reading time is ten to twenty minutes a day. You can do more if you want, obviously.  Do this and you can’t help but grow in character!
More to come!
 
In His grip,
Pastor Chris