As I looked at the pictures of the devastation in Oklahoma, something made me think about integrity.  Those buildings we planned and built well, yet under the pressure of the wind, they collapsed. What about our personal & spiritual integrity? Are we who we say we are? Are we men/women of our word? Do we remain strong or sway in the breeze when our faith is tested?
There will come a day when you are tested and others will see what is inside. Have you ever watched a cider press? The apples are put into the press and the weights are pressed upon the apples. What comes out of those apples during the squeezing? Juice…cider. What about us? When things get tough or don't go our way? Do good things come out or the bad things?
Luke 6:45 – “a good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the moth speaks what the heart is full of.”
- What are you putting into your heart?
- What you put in behind the scenes (devotional time, prayer time, love…) comes out.
- Look at sports teams or bands. You can tell if they have practiced hard or not.
2 Corinthians 8:1-5 – Paul is telling the Corinthian church about what he saw when the Macedonian church was ‘pressed'. What came out of them… (verse 2) “in the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity”. They were pressed and out came joy and generosity. I wonder what they were putting into their lives.
If you have let your integrity slip, take the time to build it back up. Just like it will take a while to rebuild from those tornados, it will take time to rebuild our integrity. But we need to have integrity. The world needs to see that we will not be moved from our foundation of faith in Christ Jesus.
Lord, help me to be a man of my word. Help me to be firm in my faith even when the pressure comes against me to fold. Help me to be who You made me to be.
PB
