“What the World Needs Now is Love – Right After Integrity!

“But he refused and said to his master’s wife, ‘Behold with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has put all that he owns in my charge.  There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you  are his wife.  HOW THEN COULD I DO THIS GREAT EVIL AND SIN AGAINST GOD?” (Gen. 39:8-9)

Hey Gang:  Yesterday I shared the message, “There is a sadness in my heart”.  As I went through the day, the thought of why do such things happen or why do we allow them to happen.  Did the people involved know that it was happening and if so why did they allow it to continue?  And in the quietness of the day, that quiet voice spoke “integrity has become just a word without meaning”.

 A cartoon in a local newspaper depicted two executives sitting in prison.  One turns to the other and says “And all along I thought our level of corruption fell well within community standards”. Another said “we can tell the success of our people by how many toys they have”.  

As I listened to the news tonight, which I might add is the most depressing part of my day, I got the feeling that I was sitting in one of the deck chairs on the Titanic.  As one announcer said, ‘the biggest problem for the news media today is which crisis or break down in the  law of our land demands time on the airways. ’      
The question then is, what is integrity? Everyone can probably give a definition of integrity and they'll probably all be different in some way or another.  The dictionary says that integrity is "the quality or state of being of sound moral principle; uprightness, honesty, and sincerity."

Okay, so integrity has to do with being moral, but I wonder if the average Joe on the street has even a remote understanding of  what the concept of morality is all about.   Again, according to the dictionary moral means "capable of making the distinction between, right and wrong in conduct." That's mans definition, but what is God's?

The Bible teaches that integrity is doing what God would say is the right thing, even if it costs you. It means obeying God's law, speaking only truth, and putting the other person ahead of yourself. It means displaying the character of God in your daily walk and that means setting us apart from the world and being role models of the character of our God.

A man of integrity would rather die than deny, or turn away from, his integrity. Job said: "I will never admit you are in the right; till I die, I will not deny my integrity" (Job 27:5). Why? Because even in the midst of torment, Job held on to his integrity.

Tomorrow morning I am going to have a blood test for my annual physical.  I wonder if one of the tests could measure integrity in my blood,  at what it would tip the scale?

Blessings,

 Gramps 

 P.S.  How about you?