Hello Everybody! 😀
I pray that your Weekend is going pretty well.
We had a brother in the church that lost a newborn baby and just came back from Africa from burying the baby. 😦 We as a church pulled together to minister to his spirit by loving on this individual because it’s so important to have support when you’re going through that time of grief. I know I needed it when I was going through the grief of losing my grandmother who was someone very important to me. I pray that he and his wife will pull through this together and that God will restore joy back to them and bless them with many more children in the future. I found out later on after service by my Pastor, that the brother was so moved by the love displayed by the members of the church that he made a decision today that he wants to serve. To me, that is worth a praise and a shout to God. It’s amazing what the love of God can do for someone. If it causes a person to move into destiny, then I’m all about that. No manipulation involved, just pure and genuine unconditional love is enough to move a person and shift their destiny, Amen! 😀
That’s what it means to be the Church people of God. We build each other up by supporting each other, growing with each other, edifying each other and training each other to keep moving forward to the upward call of Jesus Christ, Amen.
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
So today I want to continue on this whole thing about INTEGRITY. For those of you following along, please refer back to my previous posts, the Transition to Elevation post and the It’s PA time with God, How did you measure up? post.
It is so important to assess the condition of your heart when seeking elevation, promotion and going up somewhere that you’ve never been to before. God always looks at our hearts to determine if we are ready for the next level. If you’re not prepared, God won’t bring you to something or someone that you aren’t prepared for. People want to experience high levels and high heights, but are spiritually, intellectually and/or emotionally immature to handle the responsibility of the next level. I can tell you right now that if you harbor any jealousy, bitterness, pride and arrogance towards your fellow brother or sister, be it family, friends, co-workers or peers who are getting blessed, then you’re heading down a dangerous path of destruction.
What is INTEGRITY?
The dictionary defines it as:
- adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.
- the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished.
- a sound, unimpaired, or perfect condition.
The Bible also has a few things to say about integrity:
Let me be weighed on honest scales, That God may know my integrity.
The Lord shall judge the peoples; Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, And according to my integrity within me.
Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, For I wait for You.
So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, And guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.
It is so important to walk in integrity with your heart because if you don’t, you will walk in a place filled with many dangers. Those that lack integrity live a perverse life and are drawn to wickedness, are boastful and have a lying tongue. They will delight in the ways of evil and not good, and such people will corrupt your heart and will lie with their lips. They walk in the counsel of the ungodly and find themselves bound up by their own devices. Notice how I said “They will be bound up by their own devices” and not necessarily the devices of the enemy because all the devil has to do is dangle something in front of such a person and they’ll run quickly to evil and will get caught up in a snare. My message to you is to please not become such a person. Such a person will have a seared conscience (1 Timothy 4:2) and will not maintain any standard that has to do with Godly moral principles.
He who walks with integrity walks securely, But he who perverts his ways will become known.
The integrity of the upright will guide them, But the perversity of the unfaithful will destroy them.
It is better to hold onto Integrity, because it is founded on a person choosing to maintain a Godly moral standard way of living. Those that have integrity will be blessed in everything that they do and will receive promotion, elevation and much much more.
The righteous man walks in his integrity; His children are blessed after him.
Integrity is also founded on TRUST. Can God trust you with His business? If God can’t trust you with little, why is it that we expect to receive so much from God as if we are entitled to every blessing from the Lord? What have you given God lately? Have you given Him your time, your attention, your love? We really need to get away from simply demanding stuff from God and really start focusing on building a closer relationship with Him by pursuing the HEART of the FATHER. Seek to understand Jesus’ Heart by being a God Chaser.
Luke 16:10
10 “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.
INTEGRITY is what you pass on to the next generation if you are a parent/guardian/mentor/teacher/pastor/leader. If you look at Proverbs 20:7, it tells you that even the children of a righteous man who walks in integrity are blessed after him. If we need to pass on something to the next generation, let it be INTEGRITY people. Right now we live in a Godless society that wants us to compromise our beliefs and what we stand for, but God is seeking a people to stand for what is right, to stand up for what is good and to stand up for our Lord Jesus Christ. We can’t be closet Christians. Our life should scream “I’m a believer of Christ Jesus”, but do you want to know the reason why some people aren’t obvious in their Christianity? It is because some people are “Christians” in name only, but not in conduct. We cannot afford to be this way.
I remember sharing this story with my church the other day because right now we’re dealing with a series that my Pastor has been talking about called “God, Money and You”. You can check out those sermons on our church website livingproofcentre.org . So a while back my parents were friends with this guy that they went to school with in the UK. My parents moved to Canada and this friend followed, but he ended up living in Vancouver since we lived in Ontario.He had just gotten married a few years after that and apparently the woman that he married was quite wealthy so when he visited us and my parents in Ontario a few months after getting married, he came and showed off his golf clubs and made fun of my parents and their house and was quite disrespectful to them and to me with his show of arrogance and pride asserting that “he’d made it”.
Frankly speaking, I didn’t care and was very annoyed to serve this guy with hospitality because if it were me, I’d show you the door and won’t think twice on it if you think you can just disrespect me and my family in my own house, however, my parents were more gracious than I was at the time and entertained this so-called “friend” until he left to go back to Vancouver. I honestly was like good riddance…I mean really people, really! 😦 Oh Minister Sherline, you shouldn’t say that…yes, I’m saying that because I’m being real here.
My parents could not believe this supposed “bible-believing” friend that they went to school with together could change so much. My question was, did you really know the man? The man was obviously in love with money and you know what the Bible says about the love of money? It is the root of all evil. Don’t get me wrong, money in and of itself is not bad, but its the way in which one pursues it that matters. Do you pursue it with just means, or are you unjust in your methods of pursuing wealth? All these things matter people.
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
A few months pass by and it became apparent that this friend no longer wanted to have anything to do with my parents because he was a “high-roller” now and why would he need to hang out with those below his so-called status? Let me just say that our standards are never God’s standards if we act with a haughty spirit filled with pride and arrogance. Anyways, a few months down the road we read about that brother in the newspaper. He had stolen over $450K from the Children’s hospital and wrote out over 75 fraudulent cheques. As a consequence, the man was put under house arrest for 2 years and we also heard that the government of Canada had placed a ban from him from ever traveling to the USA for life, he was stripped of his accountancy designation that he worked so hard alongside my stepdad to obtain in the UK, I mean, the man was simply destroyed. In the papers they quote this about him:
“”It’s the scarlet letter that you wear,” [An Official] said. “’He’s the guy that stole the money from the Children’s Hospital.’ That’s how he’ll be remembered.”
We as a family were shocked about this brother’s demise. I mean, the whole thing is sad, but this is what happens when people lack INTEGRITY to maintain Godly standards in their character and conduct. This is what happens when you don’t preserve your integrity. You compromise and do things your way because you don’t want to listen to God anymore, you want to take things into your own hands and feel like you don’t need to answer to anybody and refuse to submit to Godly and wise counsel. You will be operating in a place of mediocrity and will end up with a life that is mediocre. When you lead yourself astray, the devil uses you as his playground to get you to a place where you are bound up, isolated and can’t move. That is called BONDAGE folks.
The truth is, there is redemption and there is grace, however, the road is much harder to walk on because you have to guide yourself back to the right path by first seeking the Father’s heart through REPENTANCE. Don’t ever take God’s grace in your life for granted, because one of these days, that grace period will run out and it’ll be too late. If your heart is far from the Father, you are walking on a perilous road. Stop trying to exalt yourself when humility is the path that you should walk in in order to preserve your life and your future. I’ve lived a life serving dignitaries at a government level and can tell you, I’ve seen the worst in government and I’ve seen amazing people at the same time. How you climb up in promotion MATTERS, because if you ever fall, you’ll have to wonder if there will be anybody below to catch you when you fall. How you treat people MATTERS, because if you treat people with disdain, you will have no true support to help you when you’re down. Treat people in the way you would like to be treated, Amen!
Titus 2:6-8
6 Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded, 7 in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility,[a] 8 sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you.
Here is a song from Elevation Worship called Grace Like a Wave. I pray that it ministers to someone’s spirit today as we meditate of the Grace of God and how we shouldn’t take that grace for granted in our lives. Let’s learn to walk in right-standing, Amen! God bless you everybody! 😀
Sherline's Watchu Thinkin' Blog 
Wow. … all I can say is Thank You Lord for blessing us with a word of truth through my dear Sister. God bless you Sherline!
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Thanks Terra. Love ya! 😀 *hugs* God bless 🙂
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Love ya back! Hugs n God bless you too!
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