All week, it’s been on my heart to share on the topic of integrity. Yes, integrity, a word many have probably heard but few understand. It seemed like every article I read or news report I watched had me questioning how many people today truly knows what it means to live a life of integrity and the importance of it in their daily lives.
It started with an episode of “Basketball Wives LA” as I watched one of the women recall how she felt her cast mate was putting on a front and couldn’t be trusted. However, when they played her actual response to the woman in a clip, she laughed it off and played nice like there was no issue. 
A few days later, I’m reading a magazine article about Ashton Kutcher’s apparent affair with a 22 year-old woman in a hotel room on his 6th year wedding anniversary. Apparently, him claiming to be separated was enough for her to jump in bed with him, yet at the end of the article she says she values marriage and would never cheat on her husband. The ignorance of the article is beyond your wildest imagination and I won’t waste time on it. I want to focus on just one of the missing ingredients in both of these stories… Integrity.
… and as God would have it designed, the journal entry where I wanted to pick up on this week would be August 5, 2007 “Walking in Confidence & Integrity.”
Integrity is God’s order. It’s synonomous with “strength.”
Dictionary.com defines “integrity” as adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty… the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished.
When you understand that the decisions you make in your today ultimately affect your tomorrow you won’t live any kind of way. You won’t say any ‘ole kind of thing. Even more so, when you understand that those same decisions affect the lives of others and can either lead them closer to God or further away from Him, you will take your lives more seriously. God’s order is not to trap you. It’s to free you from your own inhabitions… those natural inclinations that will have you going East when God wants you to go West. The sooner you embrace His ways the less time you waste trying to figure it all out.
I John 5:13-15 “My purpose in writing is simply this: that you who believe in God’s Son will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have eternal life, the reality and not the illusion. And how bold and free we then become in his presence, freely asking according to his will, sure that he’s listening. And if we’re confident that he’s listening, we know that what we’ve asked for is as good as ours.”
My notes from my journal dated August 5, 2007 read: “Do not drift off to reasoning [it’s not always going to make sense at first.] When sin prevails, it snatches away the confidence mentioned in 1 John 5:13-15 but don’t give up on yourself! Repent and continue to walk in confidence. God forgave you now it’s time for you to forgive yourself.
It’s hard to imagine a world with people of integrity when you read stories like the one of Ashton Kutcher. Many become jaded when they constantly watch people say one thing but mean another similar to what I mentioned from “Basketball Wives LA.” But let me leave you with this, in hopes that it sticks with you in those moments of doubt and weakness….
Phil 3:17-19 “Stick with me, friends. Keep track of those you see running this same course, headed for this same goal. There are many out there taking other paths, choosing other goals, and trying to get you to go along with them. I’ve warned you of them many times; sadly, I’m having to do it again. All they want is easy street. They hate Christ’s Cross. But easy street is a dead-end street. Those who live there make their bellies their gods; belches are their praise; all they can think of is their appetites.”
Be Bold,
Be Fabulous,
Be You
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