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CHARACTER – 08/19/2019

By August 19, 2019Daily Devotionals

CHARACTER
August 19, 2019

Prayer: Father, May my character reflect the character of Christ. I ask You to send Your Spirit to convict me when I am a poor reflection of Christ so I can confess and be forgiven.

Scripture: Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Romans 5:3-5 NIV

What sort of character curriculum has your school adopted? There are many out there to choose from.  I just pray there is some sort of official school time set aside to teach character. I also pray that it is godly character, even though the schools would never dare call it that. Think about it for a moment.

Our character curriculum time is our opportunity to share our values with our students. It is not a time of evangelizing or as my friend Eric says, “An altar call to the chalkboard.” It is, however, time to teach character, and the Bible says character produces hope.

Maybe you do not have much hope for some of your students. Maybe they have made some bad choices, bad grades, or bad friends. The Bible also says in 1 Corinthians 15:33 Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.” This is true for all of us. You cannot play both sides; character is only character if it is consistent. Otherwise, like an actor, it is just a “character” that you play.

Perseverance produces character and character produces hope. Teaching real character produces hope. The smartest students you teach will not go very far without character. Character is not learned overnight; you have to persevere in teaching and they must persevere in learning and exhibiting these traits for it to truly be character. Hang in there – it is worth it!

Unfortunately, most character curriculums may teach something that we do not agree with, such as their definition of “tolerance.” Other curriculums may just lack some basic character traits that you would like to see taught. If you could add one character trait to your current curriculum which trait would it be?

I would add gratitude. I see the level of expectancy going higher and higher and the level of thankfulness going lower and lower every year. I would love to teach an attitude of gratitude… but I can, and so can you. You can teach any character trait you named by living it in your classroom. Make it a part of your environment. Teach the student to say, “Please” and “Thank you.”

Teach them whatever trait you named, and make it an expected part of your classroom dialogue and behavior. Remember you are not teaching the Bible or evangelizing, you may have chosen Biblical character traits, but character is character.

My prayer for you is that you would persevere to teach character because character produces hope and hope does not disappoint.

Copyright Kathy Branzell. Email [email protected]

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