08/12/2019
Live with integrity
Sunday 8th December 2019
'Whoever walks in integrity walks securely.' Proverbs 10:9 NIV
There are those who live with integrity and those who don't, and interestingly they're both rewarded. The first group lives with an abiding sense of God's peace and security; the second group with the constant fear of being found out. 'The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity' (Proverbs 11:3 NIV). A person with integrity is 'complete and undivided'. They adhere to high moral principles in every area of life.
Does that mean you'll never fall? No. 'A righteous man may fall seven times and rise again' (Proverbs 24:16 NKJV). Everybody falls, but people of integrity always get back up. God is patient; he'll work with you until you get it. And if you suffer from a lack of integrity, he can still put your life back together again if you surrender to him. Before he wrestled with the Lord, Jacob was a cheat and a deceiver (see Genesis 27:35-36). And after he wrestled with the Lord, he walked with a limp. But God would rather have someone who walks with a limp because they've wrestled with their issues and won, than someone living under false pretences. Daniel, a Jew living in captivity, refused to eat non-kosher food because it violated God's law. Joseph was single, far from home and lonely, but he refused to sleep with his boss's wife.
Paul says, 'When you are tempted, he will...provide a way out so that you can endure it' (1 Corinthians 10:13 NIV). God always has a way out, and when you're committed to walking in integrity, he'll reveal it to you
