“I face death every day—yes, just as surely as I boast about you in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 1 Corinthians 15:31
In our some of our previous reading, we spoke about habit, that our fate is decided by our habit; we are either going to fail or be successful depends on our conduct, behavior and habit.
In this competitive world that we live in, many are focusing on self development which emphasizes increase in knowledge and skill set.
That said, if any effort in self development does not include building character, training in acquiring good and healthy habit, then it is indeed a lop-sided, imperfect development. We can envisage these kind of people although can be very smart, they probably have questionable character. More often than not, we hear of such people using their intelligence for personal gain and becoming swindlers.
We do not wish to be one-sided:- Being smart but having lousy character or being a very good person but unfortunately not very intelligent. In perspective, it is better to be a good, not so intelligent person. A good person lands on his feet, and conscience and thoughtfulness are essential for building character. Humans are born to be virtuous and failing to be good is synonymous with failing to uphold human dignity. Apart from being conscientious to becoming a good person, we have to be resolute in getting rid of bad habit.
As Christians, we crucify our old self; we die to our old habit just like Christ who died when He was crucified on the cross. Through the resurrection of Christ, we inherit a new life. The old has passed and the new has come; we rid ourselves of old habit and behavior such as covetousness, worldliness, self-centeredness and are able to defeat our lowly self. In place of which is the fruit of the spirit and the love of God; in God’s love, we will love our neighbors as ourselves.
Character building takes time and there is no shortcut. But if we have the determination, we shall succeed. The new habit will eventually take control of us as we endeavor to achieve Christlikeness. Hopefully, on that day when judgement arrives, we shall all be able to claim, “I am now complete in Christ!” instead of feeling sorry for having done nothing . In Christ, we go through the process of being made anew, to replace the old self.