Rebuild Your Integrity

Wed, 24 Jun 2020

‘If I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back.’ Luke 19:8 NIV

Zacchaeus got rich by taking more taxes from people than his Roman masters demanded, and pocketing the difference. But after he met Jesus, he said, ‘If I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!’ (Luke 19:8 NLT) Consequently, Jesus said, ‘Salvation has come to this home today.’ (Luke 19:9 NLT)

Integrity isn’t about regret, or seeking to minimise painful consequences, or attempting to do damage control. It’s about honest repentance, making amends, and living in a way that guarantees you’ll do things differently in the future. Writing about integrity, Greg Laurie says: ‘What is integrity? It’s really the same as having character. DL Moody defined integrity as what you are in the dark. In other words, integrity is who we are when there is no one around to impress. It’s the real us. Humourist Will Rogers once said, “So live that you would not mind selling your pet parrot to the town gossip.” That’s the idea of integrity.’

The Bible says, ‘The integrity of the upright shall guide them.’ (Proverbs 11:3 KJV) Rebuilding your integrity means humbly acknowledging that sometimes your thoughts aren’t fit to print, or that you’ve hurt someone and need to make things right or that you’re going to stop cheating your employer or on your taxes. Integrity is who you are when nobody’s looking. Job said, ‘Does He not see my ways… If I have walked with falsehood, or if my foot has hastened to deceit, let me be weighed on honest scales, that God may know my integrity.’ (Job 31:4–6 NKJV)

Starting today, rebuild your integrity.