Character versus Behaviour
Meet Raj he is doing his B. Tech from one of the reputed colleges. He attends his class regularly. He takes his notes diligently. He submits his assignments sincerely. Many of us will call him “well-behaved”.
If you enter his hostel room you will find it neat and tidy. You will see his study table full of books with the laptop in the middle playing a pornographic video.
Sound’s weird right? What happened?? He seemed to be so well behaved!
Behaviour not equal to Character
One of the issues with this post modern world is that we limit our concern about a person just to his/her behaviour. We make our judgements based on what we see — the external polish.
Behaviour can be understood as how one acts(pun intended) in public.
Behaviour can be faked. I can behave politely while cursing the person in my mind. I can behave decently while having lecherous thoughts within. So what we are left with is an entire generation that is always ‘trying to put on' its best behaviour, without actually meaning it.
We live in a world where doing is more important than being!
This results in a huge deficit because behaviour does not equal character. Character is not the external polish that we see. Character of a person is rooted deeper within. It may not always be polished but it’s powerful. Character governs our default behaviour, the kind of behaviour that is often hidden in the shadows.
Character contradicts behaviour change
Enforcing traffic rules may result in better road behaviour but it does not produce better drivers. The urge to take risks and drive fast come from deep within. The moment there is a laxity in rules or monitoring and all change is gone.
In 2nd Chronicles 24 we meet King Joash, he seems to be very well behaved. As long as his mentor — Jehoiada is around, he does everything well but the moment Johoiada dies it all changes.
Joash reveals his true colours, and even goes on to kill Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada for pointing out the truth. .
Joash is quite like Raj — well behaved in public but deep inside things were not so crystal clear.
His good behavior seems to be just an act. His mentor was able to make him behave well. He took care of the Temple and etc. Yet his character deep within was not impacted by any of this, so when Jehoiada died he got his opportunity to reveal his true self.
What are we transforming?
In our Christian life often we are so caught up with right behaviour that we forget about the right character.
Jesus points out to the Pharisees again and again that their right behaviour is worthless without right character.
The Holy Spirit does not focus on our behaviour alone, instead he changes our character and that becomes the basis of our transformed behavior.
Being born-again shifts the point of reference from our character to Christ’s character. This is exactly where Christian transformation differs from other means of reformation, it does not get satisfied with good behaviour rather it seeks more Christ-likeness.
