The Cult of Personality
by Jim H. Yohe
Integrity
by C.M. Yadon
What
is a Manna-Fest Meeting?
By Larry Schoonover
Business and
the CHURCH!
by Larry Schoonover
Your Child
and the Internet
by Rod White
INTEGRITY
The word integrity means, soundness, adherence to a code of values, utter sincerity, honesty, candor and completeness. We must learn from men of the past who have affected the world for good because they walked with God. Almighty God has a will and a purpose in every generation. It is those who have understood this and let their life flow with driving direction that still speak to us today…men that have kept their integrity in a wicked and perverse generation.
Neither man nor any generation has been, or is, an island unto themselves, but each person and each generation makes decision for those that are yet to be born on this earth. The inspiration of God reaches back to Old Testament characters, to bring them in focus as a New Testament example of faith, patience, and suffering. The men who planted Christianity in the earth were sealed to martyrdom, we must not forget the hosts of witnesses that have and are witnessing our race to the end. Enoch the seventh descendant from Adam walked with God, God took him to his house. Noah a preacher of righteousness condemned the world. David served his own generation by the will of God. Abraham obtained righteousness by faith, a man who wondered and worshipped alone. When we began to reflect for a while on the people, both living and dead that have touched our life for good, most of those who influenced us for good are those who had a selflessness that was present with them, their integrity stands tall in our recalling them.
In our search to be used of God, we must take into consideration the care of the physical man, as well as the spiritual man. The physical man is a channel by which God's messages is given out to our world around us. The improvement of the mind is also very important. The holiest men have been the most studious. We should study and keep abreast of things spiritual and socially about us. The more we work on the soil the less we work on the crop. The more we work on the preacher the less we work on the sermon. Not a bookworm or a hermit, we can glory on the Mount but most people are in the valley. Spiritual life is personal and a life of prayer and study in balance.
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Integrity will help us in our duty to both family and home. Duty to family is as high and sacred as duty to the church. We pray Lord make me a better Christian, a better husband or wife, a better servant of God, and a better pastor. It is a very outstanding fact that there are more ministers son’s that are in the "Who's Who" in America than any other profession. The danger of losing the challenge, is when we begin to count our trophies rather than to get involved in the cause. We are still in the world, people are still lost, and the gospel of Jesus Christ is still the same, powerful to save to the uttermost. Some Christians have already fettered in heart and spirit and have lost the vision of souls. We are setting up and down trends at this time. When our successes are small we are tempted to become discouraged. That is when we begin to compare amongst ourselves, which is when we become unwise. The bible speaks of redeeming the time for the days are evil. God has no place for a lazy Christian. Cursed be the man that does the work of the Lord lazily. Watch the little foxes that spoil the vines. There are some things that can arise to fight the spirit of integrity, such as jealousy. Jealousy is a sin of the spirit, and is a tool of the devil. If others are having more success than you are, there is a temptation to become jealous. It is a poison that will confuse your sense of values; it feeds on small things and reads meaning into everything. The place of privilege can be the place of peril. Pride goes before destruction. More men fail in prosperity than in adversity .We must cultivate humility by staying close to Calvary.
We should not be easily satisfied with the scope of our ministry, keep raising our eye level. Pray for a holy discontent. The supreme aspiration of the people of God is to stand in Christ’s stead among men. A blind man’s world is bounded by the limits of his touch, an ignorant man’s world by the limits of his knowledge, and a great man’s world by the limits of his vision. A vision without a task is a dream, a task without a vision is drudgery, and vision and a task is the hope of the world. A vision foretells what may be ours; it is an invitation to do something. We thus become possessors of the unseen values that are eternal. "Whereupon, O king Agrippa I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." Acts 26:19. "Where there is no Vision the people perish." Proverbs 29:18 "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams your young men shall see visions. " Joel 2:28. " Write the vision and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. Habakkuk2:2.
