Six Ways to Maintain Integrity
Integrity demands that every area of your life is treated with the same intensity. You have the same commitment to excellence in your marriage as you do in your career. You have the same commitment to excellence in ministry as you do in your parenting.
Let me give you six ways you can work this week to become a person of integrity. You become a person of integrity by …
- Keeping your promises.
People of integrity keep their word. If they say they’ll do it, they do it. If they say they’ll be there, they show up. The Bible says in Proverbs 25:14, “People who promise things that they in never give are like clouds and wind that bring no rain” (TEV).
- Paying your bills.
You may not think this is a big deal, but it’s a big deal to God. Do you spend more money than you make? That is a lack of integrity. Do you get yourself in debt for things that you can’t pay off? That is a lack of integrity. Psalm 37:21 says, “The wicked borrow and never pay back.”
- Refusing to gossip.
God is looking for men and women of integrity who know how to keep a secret and not pass it around on social media. Don’t talk about people behind their back. Don’t even listen to gossip! “A … gossip can’t be trusted with a secret, but someone of integrity won’t violate a confidence” (Proverbs 11:13 MSG).
- Faithfully tithing.
Wherever you put your money first is what’s most important to you. Malachi 3:8-10 says, “Is it right for a person to cheat God? Of course not, yet you are cheating me. ‘How?’ you ask. In the matter of tithes and offerings …. Bring the full amount of your tithes to the Temple …. Put me to the test and you will see that I will open the windows of heaven and pour out on you in abundance all kinds of good things” (TEV).
- By doing your best at work.
The Bible says in Colossians 3:23, “Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people” (NLT). If you’re a believer, your real boss is God, and whether or not anybody else sees your work, God does.
- By being real with others.
A person of integrity doesn’t act one way in church and another way at work and another way on the golf course.
“We refuse to wear masks and play games. We don’t manoeuvre and manipulate behind the scenes. And we don’t twist God’s Word to suit ourselves. Rather, we keep everything we do and say out in the open” (2 Corinthians 4:2 MSG).
- Respect
We ought to show respect to our Bosses, our leaders and anyone above us even our spouses and children, a servant to their master and a master to their servant.
1 Peter 2:13-19 NKJV “Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God. Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king. Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully.”
1 Peter 2: 20 NKJV “For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God.”
Should you find yourself lacking in integrity. As we come together in our homes, I want you to know there is place for you at your Fathers table. No matter what you lack His love for you is greater… All you need to do is surrender in humility but boldly ask for mercy to receive the appropriate help for what you need … We can exchange our lack…what you lack tonight. your covenant with God supplies…
Let us pray:
Lord as we eat tonight we partake in your broken body – The bread that was your broken body has made us whole. The cup that represents the blood that washed away our sins and made us the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
Partake
Let us drink of this cup, allowing lack and insufficiency to pass from us. These elements declare that we have been made right again with you, the finished work of Christ Jesus.
