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| Character Journal No. 14 Responsibility | |||||||
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| Character Journal No. 14 Responsibility | |||||||
The Character Journal is a monthly e-zine designed to help parents teach Biblical character qualities to their children. Each month a different character quality will be presented with suggestions for Bible lessons and projects. The length of time you spend teaching these principles to your children each day is not nearly as important as your sincerity and consistency. Begin each time with a relevant hymn or chorus. Then take a verse, theme or story from the suggestions below as the basis for your daily "Bible Time" with your family. Give relevant application of the lesson to your family; and don't forget to ask your children the questions: Who? What? Where? Why? When? and How? Get each member of the family involved by assigning different verses to be read. Finally, conclude your time with family prayer.
Bible Verses Related to Responsibility
The word "responsibility" does not appear in the Authorised Version of the Scriptures; however, God's Word makes it very clear that we will all be held responsible for five things at the Judgement Seat of Christ - every deed, every word, every thought, every attitude and every motive.
For a more complete study, we suggest you use the Online Bible which you can download free of charge from http://www.onlinebible.org. Click the "Library" option from where you can freely download Bibles, lexicons, commentaries, dictionaries and more.
We Are Responsible for Every Deed
We Are Responsible for Every Word
We Are Responsible for Every Thought
We Are Responsible for Every Attitude
We Are Responsible for Every Motive
How to Demonstrate Responsibility
at Home
at Work/School
at Church
The "I Wills" of Responsibility
-Character First! Education Series 2
I want to tell you a story about when I was a young boy going to school. You know, I didn’t mind school too much, but in those days I was very envious of the school Captain. His name was Renton, and he sat just across the aisle from me.
He was the best soccer player in the school and that’s what I wanted to be. He was the best at cricket, and I liked cricket. He was the best runner we had, and I liked running. He was not only an excellent athlete, but a very good artist as well. And on top of all that, he was the smartest guy in the whole school.
If I could ever save up my stomach-aches, I’d save them until the day before the final exam. But my mother was smart. She knew I was saving them up. I don’t know how she knew, but she always did. I’d get up that morning and say, "Oh mother, I don’t feel good at all. I think I should stay home today."
But she’d always say, "You can stay home 'tomorrow' - but not today." But staying home tomorrow wouldn’t do me any good because 'today' was the day of the final exam. 'Today' was the day of judgment!
I know Renton never felt like that because whenever we had a test, as soon as the questions were put down on the board, he would get his paper and dash through them. He was through the first two or three subjects before I’d even gotten the thing read.
He and another fellow used to say, "Oh boy, exams! They knew they’d be first and second in the class when the grades came out, and so they were excited about taking the test.
Final exams didn’t scare them. These boys were always at the top. They were not afraid of the Day of Judgment. They were not afraid - because they were 'prepared for it.'
- Leonard Ravenhill
ETERNAL VALUE
Will our life’s work stand the test of the fire when we come before the Lord? Will it have lasting eternal value - or will it end up in ashes? There’s an interesting difference between wood, hay, straw - and gold, silver, and costly stones.
Wood, hay, and stubble are found above the ground. They catch the eye, just like many people’s ministries do. They are quite plentiful and easy to find.
On the other hand, silver, gold, and precious stones are found below the ground. Nobody sees them - again, like many people’s ministries. They’re not just lying around in a field somewhere for anyone to pick up. They are much harder to come by; in fact, it takes a lot of hard work to get them. That’s why they are so expensive. They are of much higher quality than many other things, and much more rare too. Again, it’s the 'quality,' not the quantity that sets their value.
Many things are difficult in the Christian life, but we should desire to acquire those things which will hold their value, not only on earth, but in heaven as well.
- Leonard Ravenhill
-Achieving True Success by Building a Character Family, IACC, Oklahoma City
Thy Brother's Blood
THE tom-toms thumped straight on all night, and the darkness shuddered round me like a living, feeling thing. I could not go to sleep, so I lay awake and looked; and I saw, as it seemed, this:
That I stood on a grassy sward, and at my feet a precipice broke sheer down into infinite space. I looked, but saw no bottom; only cloud shapes, black and furiously coiled, and great shadow-shrouded hollows, and unfathomable depths. Back I drew, dizzy at the depth.
Then I saw forms of people moving single file along the grass. They were making for the edge. There was a woman with a baby in her arms and another little child holding on to her dress. She was on the very verge. Then I saw that she was blind. She lifted her foot for the next step . . . it trod air. She was over, and the children over with her. Oh, the cry as they went over!
Then I saw more streams of people flowing from all quarters. All were blind, stone blind; all made straight for the precipice edge. There were shrieks as they suddenly knew themselves falling, and a tossing up of helpless arms, catching, clutching at empty air. But some went over quietly, and fell without a sound.
Then I wondered, with a wonder that was simply agony, why no one stopped them at the edge. I could not. I was glued to the ground, and I could not call; though I strained and tried, only a whisper would come.
Then I saw that along the edge there were sentries set at intervals. But the intervals were too great; there were wide, unguarded gaps between. And over these gaps the people fell in their blindness, quite unwarned; and the green grass seemed blood-red to me and the gulf yawned like the mouth of hell.
Then I saw, like a little picture of peace, a group of people under some trees with their backs turned towards the gulf. They were making daisy chains. Sometimes when a piercing shriek cut the quiet and reached them, it disturbed them and they thought it a rather vulgar noise. And if one of their number started up and wanted to go and do something to help, then all the others would pull that one down "Why should you get so excited about it? You must wait for a definite call to go! You haven't finished your daisy chain yet. It would be really selfish," they said "to leave us to finish the work alone."
There was another group. It was made up of people whose great desire was to get more sentries out; but they found that very few wanted to go, and sometimes there were no sentries set for miles and miles of the edge.
Once a girl stood alone in her place, waving the people back; but her mother and other relations called, and reminded her that her furlough was due; she must not break the rules. And being tired and needing a change, she had to go and rest for awhile but no one was sent to guard her gap, and over and over the people fell, like a waterfall of souls.
Once a child caught at a tuft of grass that grew a the very brink of the gulf; it clung convulsively, and I called—but nobody seemed to hear. Then the roots of the grass gave way, and with a cry the child went over, its two little hands still holding tight to the torn off bunch of grass. And the girl who longed to be back in her gap thought she heard the little one cry, and she sprang up and wanted to go; at which they reproved her, reminding her that no one is necessary anywhere; the gap would be well taken care of, they knew. And then they sang a hymn.
Then through the hymn came another sound like the pain of a million broken hearts wrung out in one full drop, one sob. And a horror of great darkness was upon me, for I knew what it was—the Cry of the Blood.
Then thundered a voice, the voice of the Lord. "And He said, `What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground'."
The tom-toms still beat heavily, the darkness still shuddered and shivered about me; I heard the yells of the devil-dancers and weird, wild shriek of the devil-possessed just outside the gate.
What does it matter, after all? It has gone on for years; it will go on for years. Why make such a fuss about it?
God forgive us! God arouse us! Shame us out of our callousness! Shame us out of our sin!
-From THINGS AS THEY ARE by Amy Carmichael of the Dohnavur Fellowship.
-Author Unknown
Responsibility Begins at Home
Billy Sunday was the king of the early twentieth-century revivalists. They built
special tabernacles to hold the thousands who came to hear him. His name made front-page
headlines wherever he went: his preaching even inspired the Prohibition Amendment. And
after thirty-nine years of ministry, one hundred million Americans had heard him speak and
over one million had come forward in response to his altar calls. Billy Sunday was a
religious superstar.
But what about his family? In his day, it was an enormous task to organise such a
large-scale ministry, requiring months of travel at a time. Billy and his wife worked
feverishly, side by side. He often preached seven days a week, four times a day, while she
took care of the mountain of administrative details. Their children?
The oldest daughter was in college at the height of their ministry, but their three sons
hit adolescence while mom and dad were on the road, busy saving America.
While Billy pounded the pulpit about moral responsibility, his irresponsible
Hophni-and-Phinehas sons bounced in and out of trouble. They were constantly in debt,
flagrantly promiscuous, and later had disastrous marriages. Two of their ex-wives even
blackmailed the Sundays by threatening to go public with the embarrassing details. And,
tragically, in 1933 the oldest son committed suicide.
After his son's death, Billy pondered his busy life in a poignant moment with his wife,
Nel. "Billy stood gazing out the window of their Winona Lake home. Watching the
autumn leaves fall, and looking wistfully toward the lake, he turned to her with
tear-filled eyes and said, 'Ma, where did I go wrong? I thought we heard God's call to
evangelism. But look at our boys. Where did I go wrong?'"
(Lyle W Dorsett, Billy Sunday and the Redemption of Urban America [Grand Rapids,
Mich.: William B Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1991], p.132) Memorable Scenes from Old
Testament Homes by C.R. Swindoll
Three Probing Questions
-Character Clues Game, IBLP
1. If someone you know was making a list of people who had hurt them and never asked their forgiveness, would you be on that list? Pray, asking God to reveal anyone who might feel you hurt them.
2. Make a list of all the people God brings to your mind whom you have offended and have not sought forgiveness from.
3. If possible, go over your list with a mature Christian and identify the basic offense against each person on that list. If you need to ask God's forgiveness for these offenses, do so now. It's always the right time to get right with God.
4. Rule out those people in whose lives your reappearance now would cause serious difficulty; for example, an old girlfriend who is now married.
5. Contact those individuals by telephone if possible, and be brief. Tell the particular person that as you have been looking back over your life, you realize that you failed him in _________ way, naming the offense. Then ask for forgiveness.
6. Make restitution where needed.
7. If certain people have benefited you but you've never shown appreciation, express to them gratitude for what you have gained. If you have a problem with being grateful, start sending thank-you notes to people who have benefited you, sharing how God has used them to build, strengthen, or challenge you.
8. Ask God to take back all ground given to Satan because you have purposed in your heart to contact these people and make things right.
-Reclaiming Surrendered Ground by Jim Logan
Webster's Greatest Thought
Someone once said to that great scholar, Daniel Webster, "You have a colossal mind. What is the greatest thought that you have ever had?" He said, "I’ve thought about many things, but the most awesome, the most terrifying, the most shattering thought I’ve ever had, is my personal accountability to God one day."
Preacher's Special Book
A preacher had on his desk a special book labelled "Complaints of Members Against One Another." When one of his people called to tell him the faults of another, he would say, "Well, here's my complaint book. I'll write down what you say, and you can sign it. Then when I have to take up the matter officially, I shall know what I may expect you to testify to." The sight of the open book and the ready pen had its effect. "Oh, no, I couldn't sign anything like that!" and no entry was made. The preacher said he kept the book for fourty years, opened it probably a thousand times, and never wrote a line in it.
-Encyclopaedia of 7,700 Illustrations
When the archaeologists were digging in the ruins of Nineveh they came upon a library of plaques containing the laws of the realm. One of the laws read in effect, that anyone guilty of neglect would be held responsible for the result of his neglect... If you fail to teach your child to obey, if you fail to teach him to respect the property rights of others, you and not he are responsible for the result of your neglect.
-Encyclopaedia of 7,700 Illustrations
The Sheep that Went Astray
-Author Unknown
No Excuses
Almost everyone has come to recognise the international symbol for "NO!" It is a red circle with a red diagonal bar crossing out a picture of whatever is prohibited. Encourage children to take responsibility for words and actions by prohibiting excuses in your home.
Write the word "EXCUSES" on a piece of construction paper. Draw a bold red circle around it and put a red clash across the word. Cut out the circle and hang the international symbol in a conspicuous place to remind children that "EXCUSES" aren't accepted.
-Character First! Education Series 2
Sources used for compiling this mailing:
