We started a new sermon series today called "Words That Matter to God". There will be three parts to this series and three words that the Pastor will be focusing on. I am not going to give you alot of fluff for an introduction on this post, I just want to get started on it.
The Pastor started the message with a question "Who are you?" Who are we to our family? Our spouse? Our children? In front of our coworkers? And then who are we when no one is looking? Think about that for a minute...... when we are alone, no one around, what do we think about? What do we do? Are we projecting the same image of us by ourselves as we are in public? For some of us, there is a small gap between who we are in private and who we are to others, or in public, and for some the gap is huge.
The passage of scripture that was used today was in Revelation 3:1 from the New Living Translation. Jesus is speaking to the church, "....I know all the things you do, and that you have a reputation for being alive- but you are dead." The church here believed in God and in Christ, but they were not living a life of "active faith". Therefore, regardless of their belief- their "reputation" of being believers- to God they were as "dead" because they did not do as they said they did or act as they said they acted when they were away from others.
God is more concerned about our INTEGRITY than our reputation.
INTEGRITY was described as honesty, being free from deception, the condition of being "undivided". The best way I heard it described today was that INTEGRITY is deciding to fuse together the heart values into our daily actions. Notice the word "deciding" . We don't luck into or fall into INTEGRITY, we decide on it! It is a decision we make everyday, all day long.
Proverbs 28:6 in the NASB version says "Better is the poor who walks in his integrity than he who is crooked though he be rich".
The example that was given to us today on INTEGRITY was David. David, who was an anointed musician, a great military leader, and a great man of God whose heart God loved. However, in II Samuel, chapters 11 and 12 is the story of how even God's beloved David lost his INTEGRITY. He lusted after a married woman, slept with her, impregnated her, and then tried to cover it up by having her husband killed. This is the one sentence version of this, but you should read these chapters in Samuel to get the full meaning of what this important story of INTEGRITY teaches us.
In Revelation chapter 3 where we were reading earlier, there is another verse that Jesus continues His talk to the church. He says in verse 2 "Wake up! Strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead.."
There are things we need to "wake up" in our lives. Some of us need to wake up financially. Stop living beyond our means, pay off some of our debt and be more responsible with our money. Some of us need to wake up in our relationships with others. Our spouses, our children, our coworkers. And then some of us need to wake up in our morality. To get back to what is "right".
We simply need to stop pretending to be someone we aren't in front of others. How do we fuse our hearts and our actions? How do we become the same person all the time and not divided like a Jekyll and Hyde? In these verses that we read in Revelation, it tells us:
First: we need to WAKE UP- this means to recognize and acknowledge to ourselves, and to God, that we have been putting more stock in our reputation than our INTEGRITY. That we desire to be the same person in the light that we are in the dark.
Second: we need to "strengthen what we have left". We cannot change what has been done in our past, but we can "decide" that starting today, starting now, to have an active faith in the One who loves us, and love everyone around us, including ourselves, as Jesus commanded us.
Third: The last verse in Revelation 3 that was read today was verse 3. It says, "Go back to what you heard and believed at first; hold to it firmly. Repent and turn to me again.." Jesus is simply asking us to repent and turn back to Him. So many of us feel that what we have done or how we are living could never be forgiven, or that it is too late, that too much has been said and done..... my dear friends, it is never too late with God.
Are you divided? Are you in need of waking up areas in your life that have gone to sleep or seem dead? Jesus is only a prayer away, and He simply wants you to turn to Him for help. Let Him bear your burden and give you peace.
Father, thank you for the open hearts that are reading this word from you. Thank you for your messenger that opened my own heart today to receive it, and in turn has given it to those You have gathered here right now. Help us Lord to make INTEGRITY matter more to us as it means so much to You. Help us to seek out those things which keep us pretending and give them to YOU to handle. Wake us up in our day to day decisions to make good choices, right choices, that please You.
In your Son's name we pray,
Amen
