Tag: integrity

Categories
Christian Living

Consistently Faithful, Even In the Face of So Much Evil

I already know this to be true – you strive to be a person who is faithful. Faithful to your family, certainly. Probably most who read this strive to faithful to God. Maybe a lot of us even strive to be faithful to our employers. You strive to be a faithful person.

But in the struggle to be faithful, you have probably thought – “There sure is a lot of unfaithfulness and evil in the world today. So why am I trying so hard to remain faithful, when so many others are getting ahead by their unfaithfulness?”a sign with two opposing arrows, reminding us we have a choice to be faithful or to sin

You are right about the level of unfaithfulness around us, but before you get too upset about it, remember that things haven’t changed all that much in the past four thousand years. Joseph proves my point.

Joseph is so consistently faithful to God. And yet, a great deal of sin is constantly around him. It begins with his brothers who exhibit quite ungodly behavior:

  1. In Genesis chapter 35, Reuben has slept with one of his father’s concubines.
  2. The brothers were in some way unfaithful as shepherds of their father’s flocks, because Joseph gives a bad report about them to his father in chapter 37.
  3. And their jealousy makes them ready to kill their brother, even though they eventually decide to sell him into slavery.
  4. They make a pact to lie about this to their father.
  5. Then we have Judah’s sons who are wicked and are both killed by God due to their wickedness. (You’d have thought son #2 would have learned a lesson from the death of son #1).
  6. Judah makes a promise to his daughter-in-law, but then refuses to keep his word to her.
  7. While on a business trip, Judah sleeps with a woman he thinks is a prostitute, but who is actually his daughter-in-law who has tricked him.
  8. And with Joseph now in Egypt we learn that Potiphar’s wife attempts to seduce him on multiple occasions.
  9. We also have the cupbearer who fails to keep his promise to Joseph.

This is a lot of sin and unfaithfulness within his family and in the relationships connected to him. And certainly there was the temptation to get ahead by following the same path. But Joseph maintains his integrity and character and his faith in God – living in a way that honors his Lord.sign that says "right is right even if no one is doing it" reminding us to be faithful to God

Isn’t this so very similar to our world today – a mess of sin – with people in our families and our communities and our places of work who are unfaithful to God. And so many around us would prefer that we join in with them, because doing so would help them feel less guilty about their unfaithfulness. It leads us to ask the question: “Will I give in, or will I be faithful and obedient like Joseph?”

The path of sin is easier, because it is a shortcut to something we want (at least we want it at that moment), but the actual costs are terribly high in the end.

God, help me to be faithful and obedient to You like Joseph was, even though so many around me have rejected Your guidance and tempt me to disobey Your word and Your will.

What Bible verse(s) help you defeat the temptations that come your way? Or who helps you stand strong against temptation, instead of pulling you towards it?

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Categories
Relationships

Killing Hypocrisy To Bring Honor To God

I see a lot of people growing in a lot of ways – financially, successfully in the business world, in their status and power, but the question is – are you growing in the Lord?

After writing a few things about hypocrisy, I came across this passage during my morning prayer and Bible reading time – Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things (Romans 2:1). Jesus is telling us to avoid the “do as I say, not as I do” lifestyle and words.

Just like the people of Jesus’ day, many of us might say – I would never be hypocritical. And yet:
We condemn murderers; while we still hold onto hate & anger.
We condemn adulterers; while we allow our eyes to wander and provide us with lustful thoughts.
We condemn liars; though we are not fully truthful with many others, including our spouses/kids.
We condemn the greedy; but we are not giving a minimum of 10% of our income to the Lord.
We condemn those who talk about us behind our backs by gossiping about them to others.
We condemn law breakers and criminals; while we ourselves pick and choose which laws we will follow (such as disobeying traffic laws and speed limits; violating copyright laws for illegal music and movies; finding ways to get around tax laws; etc.)
We complain about those who aren’t as “good” as us morally or who are not as religious as us; yet we are not spending any significant time with God in prayer or reading His Word.
We complain about how church leaders & other members are serving; though we are not willing to roll up our sleeves and serve.
We hear what church leaders are saying to us; but we still aren’t telling others about God and His gospel.

And because of all this, we stand in judgmental condemnation (which Jesus condemns), rather than loving reconciliation (which Jesus desires). And though you probably don’t do all of these things, maybe you see one or two in that list above that describes some habit you need to remove from your life.

Paul tells us the problem is this – “you, therefore…who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal? You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? … You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? For “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” just as it is written (Romans 2:21-24).

So the problem with hypocrisy in Christians is that those who don’t know the Lord will see such inconsistency in our lives, that they will not hold God in high esteem. This is why it is important that we change these patterns. Instead of His Name being blasphemed, we need His name to be honored because of us. So Jesus tells us to . . . let your light shine before others in such a way that they see your good deeds and glorify your Heavenly Father because of your consistent, honest, moral lifestyle.

Let’s be willing to look inward, to be honest with ourselves, and to root out any inconsistency and hypocrisy that might be in our lives. We need to work on killing hypocrisy – making sure our lives bring honor and praise to the name of God in all that we say and do.

Categories
Christian Living

Integrity Means Letting Your Yes Be Yes

I have enjoyed my blogging experience thus far. As much as anything, writing helps me process my thoughts and learn to be a better communicator. And I was working on a few different posts, but I couldn’t seem to pull any together for a fully cohesive post. So at the end of last week, I just posted a short snippet from one I had been working on. When I started posting to facebook and blogging a few months ago, I did this pretty often. But then it seems that I forgot how!

Because I do enjoy getting more complete thoughts put together before posting, I found myself not able to post as often… making my postings sporadic. So I’m planning to send out more snippets and brief thoughts in the future to keep my posting more regular. And I think that may be better anyway! Even in our own experience of wanting to change the conversations, maybe we shouldn’t worry so much about saying something exactly right as much as we should just go ahead and speak about Him and let our “snippets” have great impact over time.

So here is a brief thought on us having integrity, character, and consistency. Jesus tells us to be people of honesty and consistency. That our ‘yes’ should mean ‘yes’ and that our ‘no’ should mean ‘no.’ That our integrity should be at the highest level. But a problem exists for many of us. We have fallen into the trap, that it is OK to be inconsistent, as long as it benefits us. And that leads to our misunderstanding of God’s word, to our misapplying God’s truth, and down the path toward hypocritical attitudes and beliefs.

For example, due to our lack of consistently living out the Bible, we have reversed a proper understanding of the “do not judge” passages in the Bible. A problem our neighbors and co-workers can have with Christians, is our harsh judgment toward others. Jesus had harsh judgment for only one group – the rigid religious leaders who had no compassion for others. But for those who were sinners without any real relationship to God, Jesus held out compassion and love, hoping to move them closer to God.

hammerGod calls us to “judge” the habitually sinful behavior of our fellow Christian brothers and sisters. He tells us to do this so that we can sharpen one another and hold each other accountable. But God tells us to hold out love to those without faith to help them desire to come into our loving family. Our problem is that we flip these two and get them reversed.

And so not only do we judge the wrong group… too often, we not only want to judge, we want to condemn.
Are you swinging the hammer of condemnation toward those who need love?
Are you staying silent toward your fellow Christian brothers and sisters who need you to keep sharpening them?
Let’s flip it back to the biblical model, the model of Jesus!

Sharpen your Christian family with love, leading them toward more God-honoring behavior..
Hold out compassion and love to all others, leading them toward the kindness and salvation of God.
And don’t get the two mixed up!

Categories
Christian Living

The Hypocrites Motto

“Do what I say, not what I do.” The motto of a hypocrite, perhaps?

“I don’t go to church because there are so many hypocrites there.” You’ve heard it said. Maybe you’ve even said it. Maybe you still feel that way today. It has been said that “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable” (Brennan Manning).

The thing that bothers those neighbors of mine and the reason your coworkers make these types of comments… is that they see people who they know go to church every Sunday use the roughest, foulest language throughout the week; who leer at the opposite sex and make inappropriate comments about them later; who treat their spouse and kids poorly; who badmouth the boss behind his back; and who find sneaky ways to get around the rules and laws – of the workplace, of the school district, of the tax payments. They look at the attitudes, habits, & lifestyle of many Christians and think – “they don’t seem to be anything like the Jesus I’ve heard about.”

Cause most all of the folks around you know a little bit about Jesus, even if they aren’t a follower of Him.
At the very least, they know that He was about love. And they know that anyone who claims to follow Him should also be about love. They know that those who say they believe in God should live a consistent life that is faithful to the lifestyle that Jesus lived.

But too often, they see something different.

Does your life match up with your words? Let’s keep striving toward consistency – being people of the highest integrity and character.