 At first glance it may seem odd that our first video on a series on media communication is titled character and self-awareness but the truth is media isn't just this you know abstract idea that exists around us. Media is something that we engage in today in our very personal lives over and over again. It's a very much integral part of our lives in modern society and not only that but the truth is we have a great deal of control over media right of our own personal media meaning what we put out there how we frame things the image that we put out there how we treat other people and how we engage using social media we have such an incredible degree of control over that that media has to be on our mind at all times and the way that we engage in media has to be an integral part of our communication awareness and so our really our understanding of media communication starts with in these days our own use of an image in media so that is why the very first video in this series on media communication is character and self-awareness so we're going to dive into each of these topics independently a little bit even though they dovetail quite a bit so let's start with character and when we do that I was like to start off by defining what it is we're talking about what do we mean by that so for us and specifically in regards to character what is character well character is a word that's derived from the Greek word and notion of character and what they meant by that is a stamping tool originally character was he a word used for a stamping tool a tool that was used to make an indelible mark there makes a distinctive mark the word evolved to include that and over time though it's come to to symbolize or to mean a symbol or imprint on the soul so where originally it was a stamping tool used to leave a mark in some sort of material whether that's leather or steel or whatever and leave that distinctive mark character now has come to symbolize the symbol or imprint on our soul so we are and I think Alan Williams said it very very well when he said characters who you are when no one is looking that's the real mark of characters that character comes through us when nobody's really paying attention who are we when at our core when nobody else is really watching us so more specifically let's dive into what we mean by Christian character and what character means to us as Christians as followers of Christ first of all we need to understand that that the character begins with Christ character initiates with Christ without Christ we don't have Christian character really Christian character begins with Christ who then as it was told in second Corinthians Paul tells us second Corinthians 517 says therefore if anyone is in Christ that person is a new creation the old has gone the new is here so when we come to know Christ as our Savior when we accept that salvation the slaves wipe clean we become new people and we take on the character of Christ theoretically that's the ideas that we become then Christ's like and take on the character of Christ we also know that the character for Christians is a product of the Holy Spirit without the Holy Spirit it's really not possible for us to become even anywhere near approaching the character of Christ right that's the the blessing that we have as as Jesus told us in in John verses 15 through 17 he said if you love me keep my commands and I will ask the Father and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever the Spirit of truth he goes on to say then later on in John 1426 he says but the advocate the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you so Christian character begins with Christ with becoming Christ like first of all accepting that salvation clearing that slight cleaning the slight wiping it clean and and becoming well within by the Spirit of Christ and taking on his character really and then it's aided and is a product then of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us and guiding us which is also again I get from God and and so it allows us to be as close in character to Christ as we as we can be Christian characters also revealed to us in scripture so what what is you know for defining Christian character what does that mean it's revealed to us in scripture we can look at Romans for example 5 1 through 5 says therefore since we've been justified through faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand and to boast in the hope of the glory of God not only so but we also glory in our sufferings here's where we learn character we glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance perseverance character and character hope and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who's been given to us so then we have that connection between so what is character character something that's derived as we learn to abide with Christ through perseverance you know it comes from suffering develops perseverance perseverance develops that character in in knowing and understanding what it means to be Christ-like in a sense and that brings us hope and all of that comes through the Holy Spirit we can also look at 2nd Peter verses one sorry chapter 1 verses 5 through 8 which says for this very reason make every effort to add to your faith goodness and to goodness knowledge and to knowledge self-control and to self-control perseverance and to perseverance godliness and to godliness mutual affection and to mutual affection love for if you possess these qualities in increasing measure they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ so what do we need to do to develop a Christ-like character a Christian character we need to add in addition our faith we need to add goodness and knowledge and self-control and perseverance and so forth to develop these qualities that we need in our lives to display Christian character so we need to understand finally that Christian character is more than just morality it's more than just knowing and doing right versus wrong it's it's you know we know that that being Christ-like is moved beyond that it's not just doing the right things or thinking the right things it's acting that way it's showing love it's showing compassion and and just I'm displaying to the best of our abilities have the the same qualities that we would have seen with Christ and that Christ would have us display so okay so Christian character begins with Christ it is accessed through and and guided by the Holy Spirit it is revealed to us in scripture and we can learn more about it there in a variety of different areas within scripture and and it's grounded in understanding that it's more than just morality it moves beyond just morality and into that Christ-like behavior Christ-like attitude and Christ-like way of living so character relates to our usage and access of media in today's world in the sense that you know again we have all these choices about how we display ourselves how we treat other people what we let people see of us and and the image that we put out there much like you know go back to this image here and so our character really serves as a primary force in how we utilize media and the images and the personality that we put on display will be derived from our character we need to keep in mind that our characters display just as much through media as it is in any other form of life and so we have an obligation then to to represent ourselves there using the Christian character that derives from Christ and is guided by the Holy Spirit and so forth all of this kind of really comes back to in some ways self-awareness this idea of who are we how do we know who we are and how does that impact our relationship with others so let's talk a little bit about self-awareness then have you know and its impact on social media and use of media in general so what do we mean by self-awareness well first of all it's very simply just a conscious knowledge of one's character emotions desires and motivations it's really a thorough understanding of who you are and hopefully an accurate reflection of who you are so we need to build upon the self-awareness and take self-awareness from lots of different areas and and be able to identify accurately who we are and what that means to us and what that means to our place in the world and our relationship with others we need to also understand that self-awareness is not the same as self-absorption we're not talking here about narcissism we're not talking about placing yourself at the center of the word we're talking about having the understanding of who you are and what impact that has on not only your own life but your representation of Christ and your relationship with others and and your relationship with God and so forth as we will talk about perhaps most importantly we need to keep in mind what Anne Landers the little common columnist said know yourself don't accept your dog's admiration is conclusive evidence that you are wonderful it's important for us to take time to do self-examination to be aware of who we are and to really have a thorough understanding of ourselves and not just accept our dogs or anybody else's or anything else's evidence that who we are that we need to know this for ourselves so why is this important first well it's important in terms of understanding ourselves as I've mentioned a couple times now just having that self-awareness that self-knowledge of who we are and a thorough understanding of ourselves and and just just again knowing ourselves and being aware of that also understanding our relationship to others we most likely don't live in a vacuum we live with other people we live with our family and our friends and it's the people around us in society and so what we do has an impact on others we are part of that larger system so we need to be aware of ourselves and how our own decisions how our own behaviors how our own choices are affecting those around us and how it affects our relationship with others in general other people we also need to be aware of ourselves in in understanding what our relationship is to God who we are in relationship to God and and being aware of the implications of that has for us but the responsibilities but also the blessings that come with that and just having a self-awareness of being God made you know God got created and and being you know a child of God and just being having that awareness and how that impacts who we are and how we can see ourselves so what can we do to then grow in our self-awareness how can we become more self-aware well specifically again in a Christian sense I want to suggest you that there are a couple things that we can do and should do to grow in our self-awareness and the first is to see ourselves as God create God's creation to understand that we live not only in relationship with God but that we are created by God for his purpose for his joy and that that he is you know the reason for our being but we are also created for a reason and created for his enjoyment and his blessing so we need to see ourselves as God's creation make that a central part of our self-awareness is that we are created by and loved by chosen by God for the purpose that he has for us we also need to be able to discern our gifts and blessings we need to be able to discern our gifts and blessings to again identify what is that God has provided for us what is it that God has chosen for us what what is it that he has gifted us with we can grow in our self-awareness by understanding the gifts that we have the blessing that you know the the tools that he has provided for us and then this one so that we can do the work that he has laid out for us and also the blessings that he shows upon us we can grow in our self-awareness in terms of understanding how God is blessing us how he's working in our lives we can also then just abide in Christ you know character is derived from Christ as we talked about before it comes through that that salvation the slaves wiped clean he comes dwells within us provides us with the Holy Spirit and we can just abide in him we can just as he said remain in him the as he says in in John 15 verse 4 remain in me as I also remain in you no branch can bear fruit by itself it must remain on the vine of course is when he's talking about I'm the vine and and for the branches and so neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me so we can't be who we are meant to be unless we are able to abide in Christ so we can grow in our self-awareness by just remaining in him just understand that we are we are we are imbued with the spirit because of our salvation through Christ and we can just remain in that abide in that and let that be a part of our lives in our self-awareness so as Christians those are things that are central to developing our self-awareness again what does all of this have to do with with media communication let me come back to that real quick again we are who we you know represent ourselves to be on media and how we access media and how we treat others using media and not only the TV shows that we watch and stream and so forth but you know how are we representing ourselves and how are we treating others on social media how are we using that to the benefit of others and to benefit of God and and it's our relationship our Christian relationship and Christian being represented effectively in that area as well and just through our behaviors and our not just you know what we post and things but again how we treat others and just our overall use of media really and just like anything else in life this is all impacted by our character and our self-awareness our core values who we are and our behaviors that we display and the understanding that we have of who we are not just to ourselves but in relationship to others in relationship to God so I think a thorough understanding and effective use and and engagement with media starts with knowing ourselves knowing our character and being aware of who we are if questions about this or anything else related to personal media communication please feel free to email me be happy to engage with you in that way and I look forward to hearing from you there in the meantime I hope you will do some self-examination identifying who am I what am I aware of myself and you know engaging and developing the self-awareness skills so that we can be more effective and and more fruitful in a sense in using and understanding media