Do You Have Integrity?
Do You Have Integrity |
'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: You have gone far enough, O princes of Israel! Give up your violence and oppression and do what is just and right. Stop dispossessing my people, declares the Sovereign LORD. You are to use accurate scales, an accurate ephah and an accurate bath. The ephah and the bath are to be the same size, the bath containing a tenth of a homer and the ephah a tenth of a homer; the homer is to be the standard measure for both. The shekel is to consist of twenty gerahs. Twenty shekels plus twenty- five shekels plus fifteen shekels equal one mina. Ezekiel 45:9-12
You might read the above verses and think that this only applies to people that run a business or company. So, if I do not own a company or business then it does not apply to me, right?
This principle applies to business people, and the individual and his or her personal life too. This principle should not only apply to our Christian brothers and sisters, but especially to our non- believing friends. What a great way to be an example for Jesus.
These principles go beyond money, I would call it personal integrity. Stop and think for a moment, think about some dealings that you have had with a friend or business contact. If you have a situation in mind, would you have done the same thing if Jesus were standing right next to you?
Maybe instead of lending that person money, you might have given that person the money, without asking anything in return. Maybe instead of selling an item for more than you think it was worth, you would have sold it for the true value. And here is a hard one, what if someone at the store gives you too much change back? You have left the building and are counting your change, and realize the store gave you $20 instead of $10. Do you say to yourself, "It was their careless mistake" or do you go back and return it to the cashier? No one else knows........ except Jesus.
The way that we conduct business with our money speak volumes about us as Christians. It is tempting when we are faced with these situations, but money, and our love for it, is one major value that separates us from the the world. Did you happen to notice in the scriptures, that if a person cheated another person on a measurement of a ephah, they were also cheating GOD? When that cheated person would offer up that ephah as a sacrifice it would not be a true ephah. I would think that GOD would not hold the cheated person responsible, but the person that did the cheating responsible.
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