CHARACTER (Part 1)


Message by Pastor Kunle Osunkunle
(The President of Singles' Fellowship, The Fountain of Life Church)

Sometimes, the reason why you don’t move ahead or possess some things in life may be due to the kind of characters you have. Every man desires to bear glory. But glory has a weight and when you have character, you will have a way of bearing the load of glory. Many marriages have failed because of poor or bad characters.
Some of the good and godly characters
Character is like a foundation; therefore, it is good to start to build good and godly character early enough in life.
Some of us need to learn patience, sincerity, honesty, self-caution, respect, etc. Some people have lost opportunities because at some point in their lives, they lack good characters and had refused to build on it.
Character is like an aroma or perfume that either attracts or repels people.
Your reputation will always precede you because you are constantly being watched by people around you. Character contributes to beauty and fortifies a woman as her youth fades. Good characters can make a great deal as to make a woman more beauty as well as a man more handsome.
Character is personal; it impacts and affects people around you. Nobody gets you angered, you simply decide to use anger as a response to their communication with you. Love is a true test of character. If you don’t love people, you will have poor character. It is a foundation to success in life.
Research has shown that positive attitudes reflect in cheerful smiles, boost immune system and improve on or ensure good health.
People with bad characters are usually selfish. Many people concentrate and take time to shop, beautify and celebrate their outward appearance/outlook (fruits) while they neglect the seeds and the characters on the inward man.
Take time to build good characters and celebrate your seeds that are on the inside of you.

2Peter 1:4-10 (The Message)

When opportunities comes to you and the right partner comes to you too, if you don’t have the right and good characters, and they are not growing in you; you will lose them and become short-sighted in the long run.
If you can build faith, self-control, perseverance, virtue (high moral standards with no compromise), love and knowledge of God’s words, then you can build godly characters. Self-control is the ability to hold oneself in most difficult situations.
Whatever you compromise to get, you will lose it without any effort.
The purpose of Christianity is not to just encounter difficulties, but to produce characters adequate enough to meet the needs even in difficult times.
Christianity doesn’t make us hidden as to avoid crises or troubles, it makes us great enough to live and overcome daily.
There are some things you can’t get until you build godly characters.

Colossians 3:12-17 (The Message)

Character is needed if you want to reach your full potentials in life. It is a stable and distinctive attitudes that has been coded to respond to situations. It is what you do on the reflex or default (when you don’t have to think about it).

HOW TO DEVELOP GOOD AND GODLY CHARACTERS

Mark 7:21-23 (The Message)

What is in your heart forms your character. Your environment, media, books, etc are what form our characters.

1.    Study the Word of God and acquire divine instructions:  You need to be instructed of the Lord through His Words and be always totally obedient to His instructions. Exposure to God’s words build good and godly characters in us. When you get into God’s Word, you will learn more of God’s characters. When you wear God like a perfume, no man can reject you because no man can reject Jesus. Anything you look at the longest is what you will become. Look more on the word of God, the word of liberty, the you will always respond to situations based on God’s Words.
2.   Commitment to God:  Good and godly characters are only formed when you are committed to God. God must take first place in your life and all endeavours. Proverbs 11:5-6; 2Corinthians 5:20. Our attitude should always be as God’s Ambassadors. Don’t marry someone who is not first committed to God, else such can be committed to someone else in the long ways. Good character is the best form of insurance in life.
Characters determine how you will respond to situations all times.
We need to understand that we are citizen of Heaven and start to behave like God. Always pause and ask yourself “What will Jesus do?”
If you want to change your character, it is not about subtracting or taking away something, but adding to your life.

Perseverance:  This is suffering without becoming upset. To continue in an action in spite of failure or little success and discouragement.

2 Corinthians 3:18; John 17: (The Message).

Building character gives us strength and wisdom to face and overcome challenges. Begin to build character strength today.

May the Lord help you as you decide on this.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LOVE AND INFATUATION (PART 2)

Message by Pastor Kunle Osunkunle
(President, The Singles Fellowship, The Fountain of Life Church)

  1. Infatuation always “looks on” and this makes it superficial; but true love “looks through” and is sacrificial. 1 Samuel 9:2; 1 Samuel 16:6-7. Many people just make decisions based on what they see. Eyes can’t just decide, you need to search out what his or her heart is made off. You can achieve this by the help of the Holy Spirit through God’s Words. Jeremiah 17:9-10. Like Prophet Samuel, you may know where you are going, but can you recognize what you want and that God has prepared for you? Because a man or a woman’s inside is important to God, it must be important to us as well. While infatuation looks on the surface, love through a man or a woman.
  1. Infatuation is almost effortless, but true love involves hard work. Infatuation is always selfish, but love compromises for good in a godly manner.
  2. Infatuation is only about emotions, but love is first about an act of will then feelings, which are just the easy part of love work.
  3. Love is a choice – an important decision. While love chooses the whole package of the intended having observed him/her in different seasons of life, infatuation just look for just one desirable characteristic and quickly decide. Love appraises someone in different seasons and gets to know his or her whole package, understands the totality of the person. It won’t appraise just a few characteristics of the person but the whole.
  4. Infatuation is obsessive and unhealthy (makes you sick and desperate), but love always makes you whole, cheerful and fulfilled. 2 Samuel 13:1-19. Love can’t make you sick, only infatuation does. When you say you are love sick, you aren’t in love, but simply infatuated. Watch what you meditate on frequently; whatever you meditate on becomes bigger.
“What your thoughts, they become you words;
  Watch your words, they become your actions;
  Watch your actions, they become your habits;
  Watch you habits, they become your characters;
  Watch your characters, they become you.”
  1. Infatuation is dominated by anxiety, fear and insecurity, and makes you feel incomplete. 1 John 4:18 (MSG). It often has high sex content because it is mostly about attraction. But, true love cast out all fears and gives you real faith, sense of security, wholeness/completeness and reverence for God. God designs us in such a way that, when we are in a relationship, our emotional and physical parts merge. When you have fear or you are insecure, you will always ask for reassurance. But with love, there is security because there is a growing trust. Infatuation will always make you to be at you best at all times, thereby living a false life. So, when you are infatuated, you want everything to be perfect without any correction and you aren’t yourself because of fear. Therefore, you don’t have room for change and personal development. So note, you are infatuated when you feeling perfect in a relationship, selfish, unnecessarily jealous and not trustworthy.
  2. Infatuation is about flattery, lies and insincerity. But in true love, there is perfect truth. Though, truth may be bitter, but love speaks truth with the sense of correcting one another. Proverbs 7:21. Infatuation can cost you your life, because, it tells you so much lies and deceptions. Often times, people try to entice you to themselves by flattering you and being unusually kind with almost faultless gestures.
  3. In infatuation, you fall in love so quickly and perhaps die; but in true love, you grow in love as you observe him/her in different seasons of life. Growing in love takes time. So, you need to learn to give love proper time to grow.
I want you to ensure that you take good time to observe your intended partner in different seasons of life before you decide on love. I pray that you will make the right decisions in Jesus’ name.