Psalm 15 “(A Psalm of David.) LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
2 He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.” Today I came across this psalm while doing some thinking about what it means to be honest and walk with integrity. If we want to “dwell in the secret place of the most High” honesty is a requisite.
We read in Science and Health this week that, “To talk the right and live the wrong is foolish deceit, doing one’s self the most harm.” Living the wrong is not speaking the truth in your heart. I used to think that honesty was only about speaking openly. Now to me it means more about how you live from your heart.
Martha Wilcox writes, “A personal sense of honesty is always better than dishonesty, but honesty as a personal virtue is merely a sense of personal goodness, and is devoid of the Principle of honesty. It requires understanding on our part to discern between honesty as God’s idea, and a false sense of honesty which is a lie of personality endeavoring to make itself equal with God. A personal sense of honesty seeks to glorify person, but in Christian Science, our one motive for being honest is to glorify God.” and “…the temptation to be satisfied with human recognition and appreciation often prevents the honest striving for the things of Spirit, which is so essential to continued progress in further good.” Teachings and Addresses
I am grateful for all that is being taught here to help us strive to be honest to glorify God. Charles Stanley writes, “The act of attending (church) means nothing unless we make a deliberate decision to receive God’s Word and apply it to our life. As the writer of Hebrews warned, if we do not pay attention to what we have heard, we will drift away from it (2:1).” The peace it brings to walk in integrity is worth all the work it takes especially in a world where dishonesty seems to pay off or benefit. Being double minded is stressful, lonely, and guilt ridden. Honesty is a basic law of the universe.
I like how one writer put it, “…we’re not talking about never messing up, we’re talking about on a consistent basis your life and your words, what you project, are telling the same story instead of, ‘This is what I say but this is how I live.’ That’s what integrity is all about.”