Christian Living

---

Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday April 16, 2008

I often write about Integrity because to be honest I struggle with this most important quality of true manhood. For reminders Webster defines the aspect of integrity for our purposes today as:

b : an uncompromising adherence to a code of moral, artistic, or other values : utter sincerity, honesty, and candor : avoidance of deception, expediency, artificiality, or shallowness of any kind.

Webster must have read the Bible a lot because the definitions used in Webster are often cutting, right to the quick. Read the definition again and answer from your heart each one.

Painful isn't it.

Now read this except from a book published in 1996 titled, "Business As Motion" I will give the author's name later:

"In my own case I grew up the son of a Baptist minister. From this background, I was fully exposed to not only legal behavior but moral and ethical behavior and what that means from the standpoint of leading organizations and people. I was, and am, a strong believer that one of the most satisfying things in life is to create a highly moral and ethical environment in which every individual is allowed and encouraged to realize their God-given potential. There are few things more satisfying than to see individuals reach levels of performance that they would have thought was virtually impossible for themselves."

Os Hillman comments on this statement: [email protected]

"Something went very wrong from the time Kenneth Lay wrote those words and the time he was convicted June 6, 2006. Strangely, Lay never went to prison because he died suddenly of a heart attack a few months after being convicted. No one is immune from starting well and ending badly."

True integrity is tough to come by and really tough to maintain. Great men and women in the Bible struggled with and sometimes failed in the area of personal integrity. I know I sure have battled and lost more than I care to admit. Integrity is like excellent performance, last week's homerun will not win the game today. It is an everyday thing.

Due to the utter importance of integrity I must ask a number of questions based on the Bible and use Webster's help in making it plain. Each decision in life is either biblically correct or wrong from an integrity perspective. Now please do make the mistake of thinking that all of life's decisions are simple. Every sincere person has learned better. Usually through some failure.

The Bard wrote: "This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man."

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2008 Use with credit.

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE