Revelry

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” 

This morning I cam across a quote by G.K. Chesterton in “Disciplines of a Godly Man.” He said: “morality, like art, consists in drawing a line somewhere.” In the preceding pages R. Kent Hughes reminds us that “integrity can cost you a relationship, reputation, promotion, job, even your life.”

A good friend and original thinker has constantly challenged me with; what’s your character worth? Some of us have a lot of it and can afford to give it away. Others of us don’t seem to have as much and need to hold on to all we’ve got. How much are you willing to give your character away for? A company pen here, a stolen hour of work time on (insert guilty pleasure here), the extra $5 the person working the cash register mistakenly gave you, half truths to a boss or friend to save face, cheating on a test, copying homework. How much is your character worth? Should we be selling out for so little? 

What are we willing to sacrifice to maintain and keep our integrity? 

1 Peter 2: 11-12

Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

Today’s thoughts best expressed by others…

“Sometimes we don’t need another chance to express how we feel or to ask someone to understand our situation. Sometimes we just need a firm kick in the pants. An unsmiling expectation that if we mean all these wonderful things we talk about and sing about, then lets see something to prove it.”
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“And people who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives… and when the bubble has burst they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted.”
- Nate Saint

“Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.”
-James 4:13-17