INTEGRITY A WATCHWORD FOR EVERY CHRISTIAN
"The integrity of the upright shall guide them but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them"
(Proverbs 11:3)
I came across a young man somewhere in this country that is a vivid example of a shattered integrity. This cannot be called a lost integrity because something lost might be found one day, but when shattered the fragments may never be fixed. This young man, a full member and a communicant, left the church and the faith suddenly. Every effort to help him proved abortive. Some members of
the Church board tried, other members made frantic effort, yet he did not budge.
The next he did was to join himself to a whore and they started living together as man and wife. He started living so many horrible lifestyles that one of his friends confronted him one day and told him he was going too far but he told his friend that he was ready even to join himself with the devil just to get whatever he wanted. From that time, this young man has just been unleashing wickedness on others around him, doing things with impunity.
The young man above had no more integrity to guide him. He threw away his faith that was bought with a precious price. Likewise have many, even still
in the church today. Yours might be cheating in your business or place of work, oppression of subordinates,
exploitation or even lying as the case of Ananias and Sapphira in our today's text. We live in a highly competitive world.
Sometimes we might be tempted to just yield a little, cover up and continue as if nothing happened. But we should always remember that the short-term benefits of that "yielding a little" cannot be compared with the long-term benefits of a life of integrity, truthfulness, faithfulness and most of all, eternity with Jesus. Ananias and Sapphira did not know it will end the way it did. Confess those ugly lifestyles of yours today to the Lord and ask Him to forgive you and restore integrity in your life. Delay might be dangerous!
The short-term benefits of sin are not worth the long-term benefits of a sincere godly life.