This weekend I read Louder than Words: The Power of Uncompromised Living by Andy Stanley. I have read most of Stanley’s books and was eager to get started on this one. The book talks specifically about character development in light of the truths of God’s Word. Stanley focuses on different relationships, familiar situations, and what it truly means to follow God as a person of integrity.
Here are some things I highlighted while reading…
- Why is it that we have such a difficult time recognizing the traps we lay for ourselves?
- What could this person have done to avoid this situation?
- Your character is who you truly are. It will impact how much you accomplish in this life. It will determine whether or not you are worth knowing. It will make or break every one of your relationships.
- Your character is not stagnant, but is either developing or deteriorating.
- Your character, not accomplishments or acquisitions, determines your legacy.
- Character is like a tree–it doesn’t develop overnight. Real character is developed over a lifetime. You can’t wait until the last minute, pull an all-nighter, and expect to earn a passing grade. The measure of a man or woman’s character is not determined by a fill-in-the-blank or true-or-false exam. This is an essay test. An essay that takes a lifetime to write. Today you wrote a section.
- Character is not as much about what you are as it is what you are becoming. It is not so much an issue of where you are as it is where you are headed.
- For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son…if God is for us, who can be against us? Romans 8:29, 31
- Biblical character finds it source in the nature of our Creator rather than in the behavioral patterns of man. Good character is nothing less than a reflection of the character of God.
- Character is the will to do what is right, as defined by God, regardless of personal cost.
- At the core of every character struggle is the issue of lordship. Are we willing to make Christ the Lord over our lives when it costs us personally?
- God’s character is others-oriented. Remember, it was “he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all.” Romans 8:32
- Where there is character, there is compatibility. Where character is lacking, there is conflict.
- Four vital relationships: Our relationship with God, Our relationship with ourselves, Our relationship with others, Our relationship with community
- Once we feel distanced from God, our tendency is to avoid Him. So we move even further away, and the feeling of distance increases. Eventually, we may entertain thoughts that God would never accept us back. This only makes us avoid Him more. Ironically, we begin to treat God with the same avoidance techniques we use on other people. Instead of facing our conflict, we avoid it. We go on with our lives (and often our sin) as if He weren’t there.
- Character is not only about submitting to God’s standard of right and wrong; it also means surrendering to God our expectations of others.
- The collective integrity of a group of people determines the success or failure of that community.
- Rules that govern human relationships are very similar to the rules that govern our relationship with the Father.
- Three elements are always present in a healthy relationship: Respect, Trust, and Communication.
- May the inner man and the outer man be one. Socrates
- Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Philippians 2:12-13
- The true test of hard-heartedness is found in a simple equation: The degree of one’s hard-heartedness is equal to the disparity between what grieves that person and what grieves God.
- Character is what you are in the dark. Dwight L. Moody
- What we believe determines how we behave.
- The integrity of the upright will guide them, but the crookedness of the treacherous will destroy them. Proverbs 11:3
- Our natural drift is toward selfishness, not Christlikeness. To expect that you can drift effortlessly toward Christlikeness is tantamount to believing you could drift effortlessly up the Colorado River–it’s not going to happen.
- Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. Psalm 1:1-2
- Character is as much about the past as it is the present and the future.
- Your character is always either improving or deteriorating.
- Forgiveness is the avenue for the most significant expressions of character. It paves the way for us to love our enemies and pray for those who have persecuted us. Forgiveness is a nonnegotiable in our pursuit of character.
- In and of yourself, you don’t have what it takes to become a man or woman of character.
- But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. Galatians 5:16