Strengthening Your Integrity - Part 2

Integrity is a corrective force that keeps us on track when life seems to be lurching out of control. Accepting Christ as one's personal Savior gives strength to integrity as nothing else can. Christians are imperfect and subject to sin, so our integrity can be damaged when wrong-doing is justified to protect oneself from embarrassment or shame.

Someone said: "I don't understand what's happening to me. Instead of telling the truth, I find myself lying about everything, even small, insignificant matters of no consequence." Misrepresentations of truth result in erosion of integrity. Some Christians choose this behavioral pattern knowing it damages their integrity and self-worth.

Permitting your integrity to erode invites despair. God's plan for anyone who feels enslaved by this condition includes confession, repentance, and re-commitment of your life to Christ. Choosing God's way insures positive change, so decide now to anchor your life where there is forgiveness, a new beginning, and God's purpose for living.

God's Gifts: Love, Hope, Freedom - Part 1

As we experience life each day we often encounter people who profess to be something they're not.  Duplicity portrays unfaithfulness or perhaps living two separate live styles. Webster defines duplicity as deliberate deceptiveness in behavior or speech. The word duplicity derives from the Latin word duplex, meaning twofold.

How does duplicity affect integrity? For integrity to be strong and able to guide us toward honesty and truth, it must be integrated with knowledge of God's word and committed to practicing what it teaches. "Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful." A person's integrity is rendered ineffective by duplicity.

Life is complicated as Jeremiah 17:9 acknowledges. "Who can understand the human heart? There is nothing so deceitful." Choosing to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind is the antidote that saves and strengthens integrity. This choice empowers us to make significant changes that reflects God's love for each of us. 

Damaged Integrity: Restoring and Rebuilding - Part 3

A person of integrity refrains from deliberate dishonesty and deception. What comes to mind when you hear the word deception? Perhaps something from your experience like being deceived into thinking or believing something that wasn't true. Deception can look and sound like truth, can have shades of truth, but beneath the surface things are not as they seem.

Have you omitted some of the facts concerning an issue because you were scared or anxious about what could happen if the whole truth were known? All of us are guilty of behaviors that have hurt or harmed others. However we can change if we feel genuine sorrow and regret for these behaviors and have made commitments to change.

Believing that hope exists for new beginnings is motivation for rebuilding a wounded integrity. Think of integrity as a guiding light within your conscience which guides you through difficult decisions that would temp you to turn from God's truth. Jesus said he is the Light of the World and in him there is no darkness. Choose to walk in his light.