September 15, 2024
by Pastor Chuck SwindollScriptures: 2 Corinthians 4:1–2
Paul's words offer a bracing tonic for our age of duplicity. Honesty has a beautiful and refreshing simplicity about it . . . as do followers of Christ who embrace such Spirit-empowered virtues.
LET'S THINK ABOUT an essential mark of following Christ: absolute honesty.
Remember these words?
Therefore, since God in his mercy has given us this new way, we never give
up. We reject all shameful deeds and underhanded methods. We don't try to
trick anyone or distort the word of God. We tell the truth before God, and
all who are honest know this.
2 CORINTHIANS 4:1–2
And how about these?
You know how badly we had been treated at Philippi just before we came to
you and how much we suffered there. Yet our God gave us the courage to
declare his Good News to you boldly, in spite of great opposition. So you
can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or
trickery. For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with
the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines
the motives of our hearts.
1 THESSALONIANS 2:2–4
Paul's words offer a bracing tonic for our age of duplicity. Honesty has a
beautiful and refreshing simplicity about it . . . as do followers of
Christ who embrace such Spirit-empowered virtues. No ulterior motives. No
hidden agenda. In Him was an absence of hypocrisy, duplicity, political
games, and verbal superficiality.
As honesty and integrity characterize our lives, there will be no need to
manipulate others. We'll come to the place where all the substitutes will
turn us off once we cultivate a taste for the authentic.
Think about becoming more like Jesus. Pray about becoming more like Him. Be
real—that's what I want to get across. Be who you are deep within and then
allow the Lord God to develop within you a style of following Christ that
draws others to Him.