60 Seconds – Pallbearers of Character

Andre Maurois stated, “If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny.”

Pope Gregory the Great, at the end of the sixth century, divided all sins under seven heads. He said that every sin that a man commits can be classified by seven words. Although these sins are nowhere collectively mentioned in a single passage in the Bible, they will carry our character, influence, and usefulness for God to the cemetery of ineffectiveness. They are:

1. PRIDE. Proverbs 16:5 says, “Everyone proud and arrogant in heart is disgusting, hateful, and exceedingly offensive to the Lord; be assured (I pledge it) they will not go unpunished” (Amplified Bible).

2. ANGER. Proverbs 27:3, “Stone is heavy and sand weighty, but a fool’s (unreasoning) wrath is heavier and more intolerable than both of them” (Amplified Bible). Remember, “Anger is a condition in which the tongue works faster than the mind.”

3. JEALOUSY. According to Proverbs 14:30, jealously will make us physically and emotionally ill, stating, “Jealousy is like rottenness to the bones.”

4. IMPURITY. The King James Version renders this “uncleanness.” Galatians 5:19 lists this as one of the works of the flesh, adding, “that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Sir Galahad stated, “My strength is as the strength of ten horses, because my heart is pure.” While fiction, it is nevertheless a spiritual truth.

5. GLUTTONY. Billy Graham wrote, “I know a man who weighs nearly three hundred pounds. He eats more than anyone I have ever known. I had breakfast with him not long ago when he ate an entire lemon chiffon pie. When I mentioned that he should be losing weight, he gave a hearty laugh, and put an extra pat of butter on his toast. He is actually digging his grave with his knife and fork. This man is guilty of the sin the Bible calls ‘gluttony’.” Proverbs 23:21, “For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty.”

6. SLOTHFULNESS. Webster’s dictionary defines sloth as “a disinclination to action or labor; sluggishness, laziness, idleness, and indolence.” In Romans 12:11, we are told to be “not slothful in business.” A sloth is an animal with two front toes, three back toes, and moves like a snail. Paul is saying for us not to move like snails in God’s business.

7. GREED. J. Oswald Sanders wrote, “Whether a man is rich or poor, observe his reaction to his possessions, and you have a revealing index to his character.” Christ warned, “Beware of covetousness,” Luke 12:15.

“Before there can be acceptable service, there must be an acceptable life” (A. W. Tozer).