My Dear Daughters: Chapter 3: Character

 The next few chapters are important. The most essential however is the last chapter seven. Feel free to skip ahead to it!

This chapter is all about having good character (which feels hypocritical for me to write about). It's important, no doubt, but surprisingly, it's not essential to have a good character to be saved by God!

God saves His people despite our flawed characters. The dying criminal on the cross hardly had time to improve his character, he just put his faith in Jesus.

Having said the above, if we are saved by God, He will improve our characters. We might not be perfect this side of eternity, but we'll be better than we would be if it wasn't for God.

I"m glad to say you all have great characters. I love how unique you all are. Grace, you're a bit sensitive like me; Nicole, you can be a bit fiery like Joy (!); and Serena, well you're pretty serene and relaxed (unless you're tired, like us all!).

So if you've already got good personality traits, why am I writing to you about character? Do you really need me to?

I'm a terrible gardener, but I think character is a bit like a garden. We need to nurture and develop good character, and weed out bad habits.

You may well ask what right I have to talk about character. Not much, I'm sure. But I remember a kid's book you used to have called something like 'The King's Garden'.

This book is about how God wants to cultivate His fruit in our lives by His Spirit. This fruit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

There's a song by CJ and Friends called 'I wanna bear fruit'- and I trust that we do want to develop godly character in our lives.

If there's anything good in us, we have God to thank for instilling it in us. If we're bad, we have to own up to it.