“With the right attitude, everything is possible” is a cliche advice people will often use to encourage themselves or others to press on to accomplish their goals. Similar to this advice, I believe that with a godly character, a person can fulfil his or her God-ordained purpose in life.

With a godly character, a person can fulfil her or his God-ordained purpose in life.

– Ama A.A.

Many people have missed their opportune moments to fulfil purpose in their lives due to the lack of a godly character. For example, pride, anger, arrogance, lack of patience, disrespectfulness, dishonesty, and just to name a few have been the reason for missed opportunities in people’s lives. According to the Scriptures, God created us for His ordained purposes for our lives. Unfortunately, very few live up to fulfilling their purposes due to their character. Beloved in Christ, I want to draw our hearts and minds to the import of the formation of a godly character to aid us in the fulfilment of God’s ordained purposes in our lives.

Godly character is extremely essential in the assignments, tasks or purposes God has called us to accomplish in the earth. The life of our Lord Jesus Christ is the greatest example for us to study to understand the need to yield to the Spirit of God to form God’s nature in us.

⁵ Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, being in the form of God, did not consider it ^[a]robbery to be equal with God, ⁷ but ^[b]made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. ⁹ Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, ¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, ¹¹ and thatevery tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:5-11 NKJV

In Philippians 2, Paul is saying to the body of Christ that the ultimate nature of the believer is to be like Christ Jesus. Paul calls us to emulate Jesus Christ’s servitude, humility and obedience in fulfilling His purpose as the lamb of God who offered Himself as an atonement for our sins.

When Jesus Christ came on earth, He came to serve a purpose that the Father has called Him to do. Jesus Christ came on earth to die for our sins, a great cause that could only be fulfilled by Jesus Christ alone. In the course of Christ’s life on earth, His character that portrayed love, humility, meekness, kindness, service and so on allowed people to be drawn to Him. Christ’s character enabled Him as God to humble Himself to die a humiliating death for all of us. Clearly from Philippians 2:5-11, we can see that character of Jesus Christ enabled Him to take on this great task of dying for our sins, hence it is safe to say that Christ’s character matched his purpose in the earth.

Beloved in Christ, we also have been called to continue in the work of building God’s Kingdom on the earth. Each one of us has specific assignments, tasks and purposes to fulfill in building God’s Kingdom. We fulfill these purposes when our hearts are set on God to bring Him glory in all that we do.

Some may have been called to be teachers but because of lack of patience may be missing out on specific assignments to reach certain students. Also it could be in a role as a Christian Ministry leader and due to pride instead of drawing God’s people to God, you may be pushing God’s people away from God. There are several examples of how our personal characters can hinder the purposes of God in our lives.

Question for Reflection

In what ways is your character hindering you from fulfilling God’s purpose in your life?

When we take our minds and hearts of God that is when bad character creeps in and corrupts us which ultimately leads us away from accomplishing God’s ordain purposes in our lives. The key to developing a godly character is to stay our mind and heart on God, looking unto God always (the author and finisher of our faith in Christ Jesus). The Spirit of God is able to help us form God’s character in us when we yield to God by always looking to Him.

I pray that God will enable all of us to have the mind of Christ and allow the Spirt of God to form God’s character in us so that we will be able to live our lives for Jesus Christ just as Jesus Christ did in His time in the earth.