honest men

This blog is not intended to offend anyone and is in no way meant to be taken as personally offensive.

personality vs. character
two nights ago, i realized - they are different.

I had perviously thought that if you had a good personality, you had a good character. And if you had a good character, you had a good personality. This is not true.

Personality - the visible aspect of one's character as it impresses others; a person as an embodiment of a collection of qualities.
Character - moral or ethical quality; qualities of honesty, courage, or the like; integrity.

From what I can tell based on those two definitions, personality is external and character is internal. This goes back to the "dont judge a book by its cover" expression. What I find myself doing is judging a person's internal character based on their external personality. I would say that this is shameful, but I think an honest person would properly portray their character through their personality. And then, I would not be at fault.
This idea all comes as a result of a conversation I had with Sarah a couple nights ago. She and I had met someone a couple months ago and had become friends with them. We were both excited about the new friendship based on the top notch personality this person appeared to exhibit. Within only a month or so, both she and I had been disappointed in the end by their character. It did not align with the superior personality we had first become excited about. The realization came when in the conversation, I said, "Who would have thought he would have had such a horrible personality". Which made us both stop. Because that was not in fact true. This person had a great personality. It is their character that disappointed us. Not their personality.

It is important for each one of us to recognize both our character and our personality and achieve purity and love in each one. Let not one lie to the other, for how then can you be truely at peace with your person inside working out.
If one is going to exceed the other, let character exceed personality. "The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).