Tag Archives: integrity

Will your neighbors point to your house? (Matthew 10:11-15) February 26, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Isaiah 45-50

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Matthew 10:11-15
Jesus:When you enter a town or village, look for someone who is trustworthy and stay at his house as long as you are visiting that town. When you enter this home, greet the household kindly. And if the home is indeed trustworthy, let your blessing of peace rest upon it; if not, keep your blessing to yourself. If someone is inhospitable to you or refuses to listen to your testimony, leave that house or town and shake the dust from your feet. This is the truth: Sodom and Gomorrah, those ancient pits of inhospitality, will fare better on judgment day than towns who ignore you tomorrow or next week.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

This is probably one of those passages you just run through real fast to get to the next one, isn’t it? Jesus already said stay with someone in the villages you enter. So it makes sense to thank them for their hospitality before you leave. We just jump right over these verses, though, without really thinking much about them in the scheme of what Jesus tells His disciples to do. Let me read it to you again and listen carefully to the authority Jesus gives His disciples.

“When you enter a town or village, look for someone who is trustworthy and stay at his house as long as you are visiting that town. When you enter this home, greet the household kindly. And if the home is indeed trustworthy, let your blessing of peace rest upon it; if not, keep your blessing to yourself. If someone is inhospitable to you or refuses to listen to your testimony, leave that house or town and shake the dust from your feet. This si the truth: Sodom and Gomorrah, those ancient pits of inhospitality, will fare better on judgment day than towns who ignore you tomorrow or next week.”

Wow! These guys are to go to the town square and figure out from the average citizen who is trustworthy in the village. Go to that person’s house, knock on the door, invite themselves in, and stay there as long as they stay in that village. Now what do you think about their mission? I thought yesterday bit off more than we could chew, but this is really radical! But those were Jesus’ words not mine or yours. Notice Jesus said, “When you enter this home.” Not “if you enter this home.” He didn’t expect His disciples to get an invitation from the villagers, He expected them to go to the most trustworthy person according to the standards of those in the village. When they arrive at that person’s house, greet them kindly, and tell them their taking up residence in their house as long as they stay in that village.

So how long would that be if someone came to your door? “Hi, I’m Simon. I work for this new preacher in town. I’ve come to stay with you until I decide to leave your city. By the way, I don’t have any money or extra clothes or bedding or anything except what you see on my back. So I expect you to take care of me as long as I’m in town.”

Reminds me of the popular television show, “What Would You Do?” To be honest, I’d probably tell him to take a hike. Am I going to let a stranger stay in my house indefinitely? It will take a lot of nudging, well to be honest it will take a 2×4 across the back of the head from the Holy Spirit to help me know I’m really supposed to do something like that. Someone I know, sure. Someone referred to me, probably. A stranger off the street…these days? Hmmmm.

Listen to their authority, with rewards and punishments, though! If hospitable, leave your blessing of peace. If inhospitable, shake the dust off your feet and leave. They will be judged more harshly than Sodom and Gomorrah. Remember those two cities? Fire and brimstone falling out of the sky until no trace of those two cities exist today! That’s authority for deciding whether a host is good to your or not.

So what? What are we supposed to do today? Do we take in every stranger off the street? Do we give up our homes to anyone who comes around? I think the answer is maybe. The answer is do what God tells you to do. I’m pretty sure there was a reason Jesus sent His disciples to the most trustworthy person in each village. When Jesus’ disciples showed up, these trustworthy men saw something in them that was different than the people that surrounded him everyday. He saw the same trustworthiness and integrity he exercised in his daily life. He saw in these disciples’ eyes the same kindness he showed to others every day. It was not hard for him to extend his personal grace and hospitality to these itinerant preachers sharing the good news of the kingdom of heaven.

But to see trustworthiness, we must be trustworthy. To see kindness, honesty, integrity in the core of a person in that first meeting, in must be in your core. To discern the makeup of the person in front of you, you must have those qualities deep inside you. Only then will you know what that inner peace and confidence looks and feels like when you meet another of your kind. To be one of those to whom Jesus sent the disciples, your actions must demonstrate who you are on the inside by consistent behavior day in and day out through every situation that arises. Then others will call you trustworthy, a person of integrity, honest, loyal, a person of great character.

It was probably easy for the villagers to point the disciples to the right house in every place they visited. So the big question as Christians in a sin-filled world, where will people in your neighborhood point if a disciple asks the question, “Can you point me to the most trustworthy person around here?”

Will they point to your house?

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Yes and no (Matthew 5:33-37) January 15, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Isaiah 12-17

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Matthew 5:33-37
Jesus: You know that God expects us to abide by the oaths we swear and the promises we make. But I tell you this: do not ever swear an oath. What is an oath? You cannot say, “I swear by heaven”—for heaven is not yours to swear by; it is God’s throne. And you cannot say, “I swear by this good earth,” for the earth is not yours to swear by; it is God’s footstool. And you cannot say, “I swear by the holy city Jerusalem,” for it is not yours to swear by; it is the city of God, the capital of the King of kings. You cannot even say that you swear by your own head, for God has dominion over your hands, your lips, your head. It is He who determines if your hair be straight or curly, white or black; it is He who rules over even this small scrap of creation. You need not swear an oath—any impulse to do so is of evil. Simply let your “yes” be “yes,” and let your “no” be “no.”

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

The election year will start up in earnest now. Candidates with spew their rhetoric across the airwaves and meet with thousands to vow what they will do if we will just put them in office. Well, we’re on president number 45. None have kept their vows yet. Should we expect number 46 to keep his or hers? I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to hold my breath. If I were a betting man, I’d bet none of them will keep their promises.

It’s important to God, though. He says so in these words. When we make an oath He expects us to keep it. But more than that, He expects our simple yes to mean yes and our simple no to mean no. But we’ve gotten really good at double-speak. Have you noticed? Just add enough words and you talk yourself into or out of just about anything. Instead, Jesus says use fewer words, get your point across, and mean what you say.

A lot of our problem in making promises is we do so about things we have no control over. Just stop and think about what you really control. You don’t control the weather, and how does that affect promises you might make to someone? You don’t control traffic, and how does that affect your promises? You don’t control the finacial state of the country, so how will that affect your promises? You don’t really control your own health except to a very small extent by what you eat, the sleep you get, and the exercise you do. So how will you health affect the promises you’ve made?

You certainly can’t control anyone else’s actions or emotions. You might think you can, but people really can do exactly what they want to do. They can refuse to take your directions. They might suffer severe consequences as a result, but they can choose to accept those consequences instead of doing what you say. When you think about it, you really have control of very little. And you can make promises only about the things that you can really control. So…

Jesus really makes sense when He says don’t make oaths. You might not be able to keep them and then your reputation suffers for it. You’ve heard the addage, “Let your word be your bond.” Today, we need hundred-page contracts because as a society too many of us have proven our word is not our bond anymore. Jesus says if you’re going to follow Him, you better start letting your word mean as much as those contracts again. He’s serious about keeping promises. Look at the promises He’s kept. They start in Genesis when He promised Man would crush the serpant’s head. He looked ahead to the cross and saw His victory over sin as He gave Himself as the perfect sacrifice to pay the penalty for us.

God has never broken a promise He has made. His word is full of them. Some He’s completed for His chosen people. Some are waiting for those who follow Him. Some await the end of time when He comes to take His bride home with Him for eternity. But God has and will never break His promises. We wants us to follow in His footsteps and do the same. “Simply let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes,’ and let your ‘no’ be ‘no.’”

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Live a life of integrity (Job 27), November 4, 2015

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Scriptures

Today’s Bible reading plans include:

Ready – Job 27

Set – Job 27; Mark 15

Go! – Job 26-27; Mark 15-16

Job 27
1 Job continued.
2 Job: By God—who lives and has deprived me of justice,
the Highest One who has also embittered my soul—
3 I make this proclamation:
that, while there is life in me,
While the breath of that selfsame God is in my nostrils,
4 My lips will not let lies escape them,
and my tongue will not form deceit.
5 So I will never concede that you three are right.
Until the day I die, I will not abandon my integrity just to appease you.
6 On the contrary, I’ll assert my innocence and never let it go;
my heart will not mock my past or my future.
7 May my enemy be counted as the wicked
and my adversary as the unjust.
8 For what hope does he who is sullied and impure have
once God lops him off from life and requires his soul?
9 Will God listen to his cry
when he is overtaken by distress?
10 Will he have made the Highest One his pleasure after the fact?
Will he have marked the seasons with his calls to God once it is too late?
11 Let me show you what I have learned of God’s power.
I assure you I will not cover over the true nature of the Highest One’s ways.
12 Look, you have all seen it—seen the same things I have seen here.
Why then all this vain nonsense?
13 Indeed, Zophar, listen closely, for what the wicked of humanity will inherit from God.
This is the heritage the Highest One bequeaths to those who oppress:
14 If the children of the wicked multiply,
they meet their end at the blade of the sword.
And even if they are fat with surplus,
the descendants of the wicked will be starved for bread.
15 Those who survive will fall to disease and be buried;
many of their widows will not mourn their deaths.
16 Though he pile up money as if it were common dirt
and clothing in heaps like mounds of clay,
17 What he may prepare, the righteous will wear;
the silver he sets aside, the innocent will divide.
18 He builds his house doomed to impermanence—
like the moth’s cocoon,
like the field watchman’s lean-to that is dismantled after the harvest.
19 He lies down to sleep a wealthy man,
but never again,
For when he opens his eyes to morning,
all is gone.
20 Terrors overtake him as if they were floodwaters;
the tempest snatches him away in the dead of night.
21 Indeed, the sultry east wind lifts him up and away.
He is gone, swept off the place he knew as his own.
22 It will have blown against him pitilessly,
and he tries to flee from its fast-closing hand.
23 As a final humiliation, it claps its hands against him as a man would—
sneering, hissing at him as he leaves.

Today’s Devotional

From today’s background scripture God might say:

It would have been easy for Job to satisfy his friends by just lying to them and making up some wrong he had done. He could have gotten rid of their incessant nagging and they would have left him alone if he just owned up to something, anything. But Job wouldn’t lie and their wasn’t anything in his past he had not given to Me that needed forgiveness. His relationship with Me was pure. Job refused to admit to something he had not done. His integrity was too important to him to give it away to these so called friends.

Job also knew what happens to those who did not live with integrity. Those who practiced deceit in little or big things cannot be trusted with My sacred things. And all the material things that might seem so important now will disappear. No one takes anything with them to the grave. But all will receive their reward from Me at the judgment. Those that lived a life of integrity with Me will gain much. Those who lived without Me and without integrity will lose everything.

Job talks about that as he shares this discourse with Zophar. In this materialistic age in which most think the person with the most toys wins, you should take a lesson from Job’s wisdom. Life is short, I determine the rewards and punishments when this life is over. The things you have now will not go with you to the next. Think about what is important. You’ll find it has nothing to do with material things, but with relationships, character, integrity. Job had it right. Live a life of integrity. You won’t go wrong doing so. 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.