On Christian Character

            “Everyone is borne with a disposition mixed with the heredity of moral pollution and family distinctiveness. After the child is born, the age in which he lives endeavors to weave around him a certain personality. This comes about when the individual conforms to an age. Frequently, the uniqueness of his depraved disposition is swallowed up in the current vogue of the personality, style, mood, error, and spirit of the age.

            “God has an entirely different purpose in His will for the Christian who has been born again. The pollution of Adam, the heredity of disposition, and the personality of the age are to give way to the transforming power of the New Birth in separation, purity, power, prayer, Godliness, and maturity that reaches fruition in Christian character. Too many professing Christians fail to manifest consistency, loyalty, trustworthiness, love, determination, ethics, prayer, honesty, purity, humility, obedience, assurance, victory, honor, integrity, boldness, strength, or character.

            “What would be a workable definition of Christian character? To me, Christian character is a life of thoughts, attitudes, acts, habits, and practices which are dominated by the principle of the Word of God, which are brought into the life through the miracle of the New Birth, and which seeks to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ in all things.

            “In times like this there is a great need for godly Character!”

Dr. O. Talmadge Spence, Th. D.

May 17, 1980 “Joseph & his Brethren”

            Dr. O T. Spence was the founder and president of Foundations Bible College, was his pastor till his passed away on July 17, 2000. The College is now pastorate by Dr. H. T. Spence, his son, who is now the president of this Biblical College. If you like to know more of this wonderful ministry, please go Foundations Bible College

Epiphany

            It is considered in the double sense of the Word as the appearance of God in this world as well as the visit of the wise men to the Child, while they were coming from orient to Belen. A feast celebrated on January 6, and where the wise men presented their gifts to the Child Jesus: gold, frankincense and myrrh, as they worshipped Him. This story is found in Matthew chapter 2.

            There are many countries who celebrate this feast, with great signs and motives for the people and the children.  It is the time that gifts are given to the children for the good behavior maintained through the year. Few of them will receive coal as a sign of bad behavior, but later on they will be rewarded because “the three kings” are very magnanimous and they will not allow that any child pass by without gift.

            I guess you (the reader) have realized that I change from “wise men”, which is what the Bible says, to “the three kings”, which is what today’s’ people sustained, over all in Spain, where the roman-catholic church has maintained this feast as something very adorned of what the Bible says about it. They deduced that the wise men were magicians, that they were three (for the three gifts), and that they were white, brown, and black men (I really don’t know from which source they infer this, maybe from their desire that all ethnics be surrender to Christ).

            Now, many people will tell me that these things could have happened. That we do not know if that is true, and that why should we take out the illusion of thousands of children in the world that are expecting a gift? Do not other nations celebrated Christmas with papa Noel? Ahhhggg!!!

Certainly, we Christians celebrated Christmas as the coming of the Child Jesus as a gift and we are prompt to give gifts to our children at that time, but there are no lie in that. We celebrated the greatest gift that the humankind has received: the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to die for us on the cross of Calvary, and as we celebrate his coming we show our appreciation to our children given them gifts for the blessing of the coming of the Son of God among us.

Yes, I know that there are a lot of difficulties to show people that they are wrong, but we Christian has to come back to the true worship and the true celebration of the coming of our blessed Lord.