Pursuit Of Character

“You are to receive Christ as your sanctification, just as absolutely as for your justification. Now you are bound to expect to be damned, unless you receive Christ as your justification. But if you receive Him as such, you have then no reason and no right to expect to be damned. Now He is just as absolutely your sanctification, as your justification, and if you depend on Him for sanctification, He will no more let you sin, than He will let you go to hell. And it is as unreasonable, and unscriptural and wicked, to expect one as the other. And nothing but unbelief, in any instance, is the cause for sin.”

Charles G. Finney (1792-1875)

A Day In the Life… Fair Questions

After having looked closely at what the “Bread” of Christ really is and “On Loving God,” I think it is not only fair, but essential that we ask ourselves the tough questions.

I will get us started:

Do I truly Love God or Do I Love that God Loves me?
Do I truly serve God’s Will, or do I serve my will and expect God to endorse it?
Do I truly pursue God’s Favor, or do I pursue man’s favor and label it God’s?
Do I truly die to self (Daily) so Christ can live through me, or do I keep just enough of self to feel safe and in control?
Do I love my neighbor enough to be Divinely Truthful or do I offer my watered-down truth instead?
Do I truly offer the Bread of Life to those that hunger, or do I settle for giving them a sandwich and call it ministry?
Do I truly proclaim Christ and His Offer first, or is He just the poster-child for my ministry?

Your answers are between you and God. That said I would love to hear both your “Do I, or…” questions and any discussion you might offer. Drop them in the comments.

See you next time,
Scott A Caughel
Pursuit of Character Ministries

Get all the facts here: https://pursuitofcharacter.org/2021/07/09/these-words-were-banned/

A Day In the Life… Bernard Who?

I know. I have been discussing his treatise, On Loving God, for a week and never actually told you who he was. Before I do, one more quote:

“I owe all that I am to Him who made me: but how can I pay my debt to Him who redeemed me, and in such wondrous wise? Creation was not so vast a work as redemption; for it is written of man and of all things that were made, ‘He spake the word, and they were made’ (Psalm 148.5). But to redeem that creation which sprang into being at His word, how much He spake, what wonders He wrought, what hardships He endured, what shames He suffered! Therefore what reward shall I give unto the Lord for all the benefits which He hath done unto me? In the first creation He gave me myself; but in His new creation He gave me Himself, and by that gift restored to me the self that I had lost. Created first and then restored, I owe Him myself twice over in return for myself. But what have I to offer Him for the gift of Himself? Could I multiply myself a thousand-fold and then give Him all, what would that be in comparison with God?”

Bernard is St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and he lived from 1090 to 1153. Bernard continues:

“He is all that I need, all that I long for. (Psalm 18) My God and my help, I will love Thee for Thy great goodness; not so much as I might, surely, but as much as I can. I cannot love Thee as Thou deservest to be loved, for I cannot love Thee more than my own feebleness permits. I will love Thee more when Thou deemest me worthy to receive greater capacity for loving; yet never so perfectly as Thou hast deserved of me. ‘Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written’ (Psalm 139:16). Yet Thou recordest in that book all who do what they can, even though they cannot do what they ought. Surely I have said enough to show how God should be loved and why. But who has felt, who can know, who express, how much we should love him.”

We reference Bernard’s wisdom throughout The Hope series and provide what we call a “mini-bio” for him in the resources section in the back of Forgotten Hope. I do not do him justice there, so I cannot do justice to him here. Bernard was appointed “Secretary of the council of Troyes” in 1128, a role he did not want, settling disputes within his denomination regarding doctrinal positions, which simply meant he kept them true to the Word. Of course, they didn’t actually want him to do the job… I can identify.

One quick and fun story to illustrate. After doing his job, to no one's liking, accusations were made and attacks commenced. He was told he meddled in matters that did not concern him. A letter was even sent on behalf of the head of their denomination by a “friend” of Bernard's, which is where it gets fun. Speaking to and of Bernard, they wrote, “It is not fitting that noisy and troublesome frogs should come out of their marshes…” Bernard's response? “Now illustrious Harmeric, if you so wished, who would have been more capable of freeing me from the necessity of assisting at the council than yourself? Forbid those noisy troublesome frogs to come out of their holes, to leave their marshes . . . Then your friend will no longer be exposed to the accusations of pride and presumption.”

Following this response, the church leadership reversed both their positions and the change in doctrine.

To learn more about Bernard and how he connects to Tozer 800 years later, you will have to read Forgotten Hope.

A Day In the Life… On Loving God – the Sum up

Even though I had studied Bernard’s teachings for the Hope Series I was surprised as I research the current book to find that this very teaching of Bernard is credited with the turn the church took which would become what we at P.O.C. call the “love doctrine.” God’s Mercy without God’s Justice, the warm fuzzy without the conviction, Jesus without the Christ.

Not only was it not Bernard’s position, it was his job within his denomination to ward of such heresies. Bernard held what the Bible teaches, and we declare continuously, “anyone who approaches Him must (first) believe He exists”. The identity of the entire Oneness of God is each clearly defined within the Word of God. Since “the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Only God has the Authority to define Himself!

(Hebrews 11:6; John 1:1) – (Chapter 2, He Is & He Calls, Forgotten Hope)

Bernard held that knowing who He is, we die to self and take on His Divine Nature. What is that Divine Nature? Allow me to summarize what we go into in great detail in Forged Hope. HOPE, “Confident Expectation” in everything God promises. FAITH “Walking in Divine Truth.” VIRTUE, “Moral Goodness.” Boyle shows that it is more to those claiming God’s Divine Nature (Christians), Virtue has two requisite parts, “moral and Christian.” “Boyle points out that while man will seek to define morality, any attempt to separate it from God and His instruction is unacceptable to one who calls themselves a Believer. To do so is to sacrifice true Virtue.” KNOWLEDGE, “an experiential illumination of the mind.” TEMPERENCE, “Self-control; ‘restraint exercised over one’s own impulses, emotions, or desires.’” ENDURING PATIENCE, “Devoted, continue earnestly, be persistent. GODLINESS, “Piety and Veneration or Reverence and Love for God and His Character. True Piety can only be shown ‘in practice’ (through Action), in ‘obedience to God’s Will and devotion to His service.’” BROTHERLY KINDNESS (Love), “This Love is Deeper than worldly love and is Eager to share God’s Warmth with our Brother (brethren, fellow believers*).” LOVE, “Love for God Is obedience to His commandments, ‘Faith in Truth.’ To Love our Brother Is having no fear, ‘obedience to the Truth’ and expecting the same. Love Is: showing ‘Genuine’ affection for another by a deliberate act of will, in moral clarity, as a matter of principle.”

(2 Peter 1:5-9; 2 Peter 1:3,4; Colossians 1:25-28; 2 Corinthians 3:18) - (Chapter 2, Life & Godliness, “The Ladder,” Forged Hope)

When we have embraced this God and He has become who we are, or properly, we have become who He is, then we truly Love God, Love ourselves, and Love our neighbor. It is only then that we can claim God’s Nature and profess to do His service.

The “Ladder” image is from chapter 2 of Forged Hope and made into a bookmark that we give out with every Forged Hope book.

See you next time,

Scott A Caughel

Pursuit of Character Ministries

A Day In the Life… Stage 4

I’m just going to put it right out there. “Of the fourth degree of love: wherein man does not even love self, save for God’s sake.” “How blessed is he who reaches the fourth degree of love, wherein one loves himself only in God!”

Bernard says this of one reaching this fourth degree of love, “I would count him blessed and holy to whom such rapture has been vouchsafed (granted) in this mortal life, for even an instant to lose thyself, as if thou wert emptied and lost and swallowed up in God, is no human love; it is celestial.”

The modern church barely, if at all, acknowledges the need to love God wholly unselfishly and only because He is God, but the thought of loving yourself only because you were Created by that God… totally unheard of! And, totally obvious!

More from Bernard, “Seeing that the Scripture saith, God has made all for His own glory (Isa. 43.7), surely His creatures ought to conform themselves, as much as they can, to His will. In Him should all our affections center, so that in all things we should seek only to do His will, not to please ourselves. And real happiness will come, not in gratifying our desires or in gaining transient pleasures, but in accomplishing God’s will for us: even as we pray every day: ‘Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven’ (Matt. 6.10). O chaste and holy love! O sweet and gracious affection! O pure and cleansed purpose, thoroughly washed and purged from any admixture of selfishness, and sweetened by contact with the divine will! To reach this state is to become godlike. As a drop of water poured into wine loses itself, and takes the color and savor of wine; or as a bar of iron, heated red-hot, becomes like fire itself, forgetting its own nature; or as the air, radiant with sun-beams, seems not so much to be illuminated as to be light itself; so in the saints all human affections melt away by some unspeakable transmutation into the will of God. For how could God be all in all, if anything merely human remained in man? The substance will endure, but in another beauty, a higher power, a greater glory.”

“Wherefore the soul may hope to possess the fourth degree of love, or rather to be possessed by it, only when it has been clothed upon with that spiritual and immortal body, which will be perfect, peaceful, lovely, and in everything wholly subjected to the spirit.”

While Bernard acknowledges that our “weak, sickly bodies” will always draw our attention back to ourselves, and therefore believes Stage 4 is only truly attainable in our final rebirth, he also wonders, “May we not think that the holy martyrs enjoyed this grace, in some degree at least, before they laid down their victorious bodies? Surely that was immeasurable strength of love which enraptured their souls, enabling them to laugh at fleshly torments and to yield their lives gladly.”

What should we conclude from this? “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (Philippians 3:12).

Being short of the destination is no excuse to stop driving, throw out the GPS, give anyone else bad directions, or pass out sandwiches without a map!

See you next time,
Scott A Caughel
Pursuit of Character Ministries

A Day In the Life… Stage 3

Bernard points out that at this stage we are like the Samaritans of John 4:42. We say, ‘No longer do we love God because of our necessity, but because we have tasted and seen how gracious the Lord is’.

Before this stage we are incapable of “loving our neighbors” as all we did was for love of ourselves. In moving from Stage 2 into Stage 3 love, we “find no burden in the precept bidding us purify our souls, in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren” (1 Peter 1:22). “Once this is recognized it will not be hard to fulfill the commandment touching love to our neighbors; for whosoever loves God aright loves all God’s creatures.”

Bernard shows that having come to the Truth this love is “spontaneous; pure, since it is shown not in word nor tongue, but in deed and truth” (1 John 3:18). In other words, if we truly love God then God’s love is our natural and spontaneous condition. It is not only what we do, it is who we are. Knowing the Truth we now love God because He is God, and we pursue His Will which is, coincidentally, the Great Commission, “Spread the Gospel to everyone,” or, pursue all efforts to “Give what we Got,” “all men saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth” (Matthew 28:19; 1 Timothy 2:4).

“Whosoever praises God for His essential goodness, and not merely because of the benefits He has bestowed, does really love God for God’s sake, and not selfishly” (Psalm 118:1). “The third degree of love, we have now seen, is to love God on His own account, solely because He is God.”

Standing at Stage 3 we no longer rely on or even consider The Tree of (man’s) Knowledge, trusting only in The Tree of Life. We know, both from personal experience and biblical, God both gives and withholds to achieve His ultimate Will, just referenced. Therefore, deploying the SSR “safety nets” of the world rather than the higher standard of the biblical method, is not God’s love, but something less, something still about self.

I’m sure most reach this understanding of Stage 3 and think, as I did, “that’s it, ‘Love God because He is God,’ what more could there be?” The answer is awakening, exhilarating, and a little convicting, and coming tomorrow.

See you next time,
Scott A Caughel
Pursuit of Character Ministries

A Day In the Life… Stage 2

Of the second degree of love

“So then in the beginning man loves God, not for God’s sake, but for his own. It is something for him to know how little he can do by himself and how much by God’s help, and in that knowledge to order himself rightly towards God, his sure support. But when tribulations, recurring again and again, constrain him to turn to God for unfailing help, would not even a heart as hard as iron, as cold as marble, be softened by the goodness of such a Savior, so that he would love God not altogether selfishly, but because He is God?”

Here at stage 2 the would-be Christian begins to “Taste and see that the LORD is good” and how “blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!” (Psalm 34:8) Right here Bernard takes an entirely different view than those who proclaim the flesh as our insurmountable enemy. He points out “Our temporal wants have a speech of their own, proclaiming the benefits they have received from God’s favor.” At this stage a person still looks to fulfill their wants but has begun to ask what kind of a God would love them so much that “He would supply all their needs” (Philippians 4:19).

If the Church is actually doing our job someone will be there to answer them and to continue Psalm 34, “Fear the LORD, you His saints, for those who fear Him lack nothing. Young lions go lacking and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. Come, children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD” (Psalm 34:9-11). We will repeat Christ’s Offer of Hope to them, “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29).

Hearing this message they begin to “delight in life and to desire to see good days” (Psalm 34:11).

If they truly embrace the Offer they step into stage 3.

See you next time,
Scott A Caughel
Pursuit of Character Ministries

Still Lamenting Easter
Originally Posted on PursuitofCharacter.org, April 4, 2026 by Scott C

On Easter weekend 2 years ago, I wrote a post exclusively for Facebook named “Lamenting Easter.” Following the post, I was asked whether I would post it on the P.O.C. website. The answer then was, “No,” but was followed with the post “Blue Spray Paint & The Axe.” This Easter, 2 years later, my heart/spirit is returned to Lamenting Easter, and so this Easter, my answer has changed; I am posting it both on PursuitofCharacter.org and our ActsSocial page. I pray that it is more humbly received than it was 2 years ago…

“Lamenting” Easter

A friend of mine said to me this morning, “I’ve just seen enough of the ‘Good Friday posts.’” She wasn’t in any way questioning the deserved praise and recognition of Christ’s suffering and death on our behalf, but the disconnection it often represents. Her statement brought conviction on my heart about having not slowed down long enough to direct my gaze to the proper place to offer the appropriate Lamentations. So, here is a sermon you are unlikely to hear this Easter Sunday.

“How lonely lies the city, once so full of people! She who was great among the nations has become a widow. The princess of the provinces has become a slave.” My first thought in reviewing this passage was how this would and could be written exactly this way about America. Then I thought how, over time, it could have been written about most places on the planet. Now I think it can be most accurately stated about all of God’s Created Earth. This quote was the first Lamenting of Jeremiah. (Lamentations 1:1)

The book of Lamentations was written by a man of God who looked out over a once Great and Godly people who had brought destruction upon themselves. Verse 2 says they weep aloud at night having been betrayed by all they had brought in as friends. Verse 3 shows the weight upon Jeremiah’s heart as those who once claimed God as their LORD now wandered the scorching desert with nowhere to rest.

“Jerusalem has sinned greatly; therefore she has become an object of scorn. All who honored her now despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns away.” Here, in verse 8, Jeremiah points to the all-important Truth and what should be the focus before and through Good Friday, on and after Easter Sunday: the all-important “fig leaf.” “…the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; so they sewed together fig leaves and made coverings for themselves” (Genesis 3:7). No one ever talks about the fig leaf, and when Christians talk about the nakedness of sin referenced, all they can see is “flesh.” Jeremiah (the prophet) makes clear what God was talking about when He told Moses that Adam and Eve sinned and were naked. When we understand this, we understand the significance of the fig leaf.

The fig leaf represented mankind trying to hide their naked sin from an all-knowing God. Having sinned, man now saw that without God (having “died” to Him), they had nothing, they were nothing, and they deserved nothing. Left with only the “Tree” they had chosen, the illusion of Satan’s promises disappeared with the breeze, and they were left with nothing. They were “naked!” Ever since that day, man not only remains naked but is born naked. And ever since that day, man has been scrambling to find that fig leaf with which to hide this Truth.

In fact, this is probably what bothered my friend. We have turned these “Holy days” into fig leaves, hiding our sinfulness behind His surety. Yes, His death and resurrection bring us the opportunity to be redressed, but where do we get off pointing to the price Christ paid, all the time ignoring the fact that we are the cause!

The question I have for all those who lay claim to the Cross and the Empty Tomb is… WHERE ARE YOUR LAMENTATIONS? Can we drop that fig leaf for a moment and weep for having gotten naked in the first place? Can we grieve at the fact that God Created us fully clothed in His Eternal Glory and Righteousness and we chose to rip it off in unbelief and disrespect? Can we OWN the fact that Christ only had to be crucified because we chose to trade all of that for a fig leaf?

As professing Christians (80 to 90% of which profess in error) we wear bright colors, carry pretty flowers, and celebrate the need for God to lower Himself to the level of man, live as man, suffer as man, die as man… and yes Rise as man. How dare we! We should throw away our fig leaf and be on our knees beside Jeremiah in painful humility, Lamenting the fact that we are the reason Good Friday and Easter Sunday exist, and we should be ashamed of our nakedness.

© Scott A Caughel 04/02/2026

A Day In the Life… Stage 1

“Of the first degree of love: wherein man loves God for self’s sake”

“…because love is natural, it is only right to love the Author of nature first of all. Hence comes the first and great commandment, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.’

But nature is so frail and weak that necessity compels her to love herself first.”
In stage one a person recognizes a need for something outside themselves, but only to serve themselves. If, for instance, a person is hungry and they seek to overcome this hunger they may look to someone else to fill this natural need. They may have two options: they may get food from the government, or they may get food from a food pantry stocked by members of a local church. What would be the difference between them? Well, if the church took the position that they would not talk about the One who truly supplied their need… THEN NOTHING. If on the other hand the church sat with them while they ate their sandwich and talked about the “Great Provider,” they may begin to love God. At this stage however, as just demonstrated, they love God like children love Santa Claus; for what they can get from Him, rather than for Who He is.

This was the exact issue with the summer lunch program mentioned in the Bread series (There Is More). We went to help out, and after the brown bags had been handed out, the four volunteers and the pastor stood at the sidewalk, backs to those who came for lunch, doing nothing. We expressed our concern at ignoring those the sandwich had brought in, then we went and sat with a man and the young girl he brought with him. He expressed his discontent with disinterested local churches in the past. He also expressed his gratitude, not for the lunch, but for the conversation. A few weeks later P.O.C. hosted a discipleship event in that same park and the man showed up. Following that he began to attend that local church.

This is not to brag, but rather to point out what we have been pointing out. God cannot use us if we stand at the sidewalk with our hands in our pockets. This kind of lunch program is not the will of God and produces no fruit for Him. We need to be His tool, not use Him as ours.

This desire to fulfill the needs of the body is not wrong; “Indeed, no one ever hated his own body” (Ephesians 5:29). But, loving God in this way is not enough, it is not the “Narrow Way” of salvation. However, at this stage they have noticed God and only need take a closer look. The question is… who is there to help them see?

See you next time,
Scott A Caughel
Pursuit of Character Ministries