Thursday, July 10, 2014

Boaz

And David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them.   Psalm 78:72

The staff of the PCC community is mourning the death of Marc Segal this week.  Marc, the spouse of my ministry partner and good friend Daisy passed away Tuesday night suddenly and unexpectedly.  Marc was a tremendous man who once served on the staff of PCC and invested countless volunteer hours serving the choir ministry and children’s ministry of our church.  His memorial will be held on Saturday, August 2 at 2pm at PCC.  Please keep Daisy and her family in your prayers.

Integrity…how would you define it? The Oxford English Dictionary says that the word comes from the Latin integritas, which means wholeness, entireness, and completeness.  The root of integrity is integer, which means untouched, intact, and entire. Integrity, in a practical sense means being in private what you profess to be in public. 

A person with integrity is not divided (that’s duplicity) or merely pretending (that’s hypocrisy); they are whole.  People with integrity have nothing to hide and nothing to fear.  Their lives are open books.  They are integers.

Here are 4 warning signs that you may be lacking integrity…
  1. It’s all about you - Selfish people harm their organizations, families and friends. If it’s all about you, you won’t go the distance.  Or you will but you’ll hurt a lot of people in the process and you’ll never know what could have happened if you made it about God and others. 
  2. You’re hiding things – You shouldn’t be telling everyone everything (that’s not healthy) - but someone needs to know everything.  If you’re keeping secrets, you’re heading for a fall. By the way, if you’re afraid to give your password on your computer or phone to anyone in that circle, you’re hiding things.
  3. Your intentions do not match your results – People, who say one thing yet do another, destroy the ability to build trust with others. Keeping promises as small as meeting times and deadlines really drive an overall summary of your level of integrity to others. 
  4. You make frequent compromises – People, who adopt new sets of values just to impress new friends or choose to compromise their beliefs to gain favor with a new group of people, lack the consistency required to build long-term trust with others. 
We see what integrity isn’t; where can we look to see a picture of integrity?  Come this Sunday as we continue our Heroes series looking at the life of Boaz from the book of Ruth.  Invest the time to read the 85 verses from this 8th book of the Bible- you will never recover. 

Integrity is everything; unfortunately it is too rare these days. I look forward to being together this Sunday!

I love being your pastor!