March 13, 2014 - Throw Back Thursday (TBT)

Wow, what a chilly moving and for my folks in the NE, hopefully you are all tucked away warmly and with power. Spring is coming soon! Today, I want to share from one of my morning devotionals a few excerpts on integrity. I know each of us have certain qualities that we really admire in people and for me at the top of the list is integrity. I am a huge "trust people" freak and knowing that people are who they are in front of me is critical. I can deal with people's bad issues if they are consistently that way. This allows me to deal with my heart and respond appropriately. It is challenging, however, if I am not certain if someone's character displays the real them. You know that question mark you get in your stomach? And then there are those things in us we wish no one would ever see. Maybe? I thought this was a good analogy this morning: "People with integrity walk safely, but those who follow crooked paths will slip and fall." Proverbs 10:9, NLT Integrity is a high standard of living based on a personal code of morality that doesn't succumb to the whim of the moment or the dictates of the majority. Integrity is to personal character what health is to the body or 20/20 vision is to the eyes. People with integrity have nothing to hide and nothing to fear. Their lives are open books. They say to a watching world, "Go ahead and look. My behavior will match my beliefs. My walk will match my talk. My character will match my confession. Integrity is not reputation--what others think of us. It is not success--what we have accomplished. Integrity embodies the sum total of our being and our actions. It originates in who we are as believers in Jesus Christ--accepted, valued, capable, and forgiven--but it expresses itself in the way we live and behave, no matter whether we are in church on Sunday or at work on Monday or in a lonely hotel room on Tuesday or suffering in a hospital bed on Thursday. I love this! We absolutely know how critical health is to the duration of our body and I feel this same intensity about integrity. I realize I have issues, as you may, and sometimes we may get caught up in the crowd or overreact and some may judge our character in that moment. And for that we repent. For that we are quick to confess and ask forgiveness. But who we are in the dark should be the same 24/7. This morning, let's purpose to check the various opportunities during the day for our character to be observed and be honest with ourselves before the Lord. Do our families see us the same as our co-workers? Do the people at the gym see how we are at home? Are our lives really an open book? Hiding and pretending takes work and never leads to fruitfulness and Godly character. If there are weak areas in our lives, let's use the "Throw Back Thursday" approach. Let's throw them at the feet of the cross, ask God to cleanse us from any attachment to them, and be the real us everywhere we go. First day of spring is next Friday, bring it on! Have a great one, PK