“Blessed are those whose way is blameless”
Psalm 119:1
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It just would not be right if I typed one more word without quoting Mrs. Shirer from page 147…
“No doubt, this point of resolution calls for an intimate, personal, introspective look at what’s going on in our hearts and homes. It touches on some of those allowances we make behind closed doors, in the quiet of our dens and living rooms, where laziness and leniency have been known to hang around after dinner and stay up into the wee hours. That’s why, honestly, it often requires a resolution like this before we recognize that these things we’ve been sanctioning with our time and attention are a glaring contradiction of who we are and what we say we believe.”
It is all about compromise, ladies….. and with God, THERE IS NO COMPROMISE!
These compromises can come in many shapes and forms and you can probably easily justify them…..
- watching a movie or television show you shouldn’t watch
- listening to music you shouldn’t fill your ears with
- flirting with an old flame online
- reading a book you shouldn’t be reading
- eating food in amounts you shouldn’t be eating or to fill a void
- ________________________________.
I am not interested in telling you what parameters you should have in place for this, because that is not my place 🙂 BUT…. I really would like you to take a good hard, honest look at what you are spending your time on and filling your precious senses with and decide whether you are compromising purity and virtue for the sake of entertainment.
O U C H….. yes, this hurts…. but it is more than necessary that we rip this band aid off in one clean yank rather than continue to live this charade.
We cannot continue to discourage one thing in public and then derive pleasure from it behind closed doors. The world, and God, needs us to stop being one thing on the outside and something entirely different on the inside. He NEEDS this from us in order to fulfill His purposes AND for us to be living in the fullness of what He has for our lives.
THIS is integrity.
Structural Integrity is when something doesn’t just look good, it also has strong functionality. What is the use of a house that looks nice if it will fall apart at the sign of any storm? You wouldn’t want to be seen in a gorgeous new dress if you knew that if you bent down, it would rip at the seams from weak construction. We cannot continue living day-to-day in the hypocrisy of our own actions.
Priscilla shared something with us in this chapter that MUST be shared here. John Wesley (an evangelist) received these words from his mother:
“Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things- in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind- that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.”
Yikes!!!! So dear sisters, which do WE want more…. God’s best, or your personal favorites?
Psalm 101:2-3 (NLT)
2 I will be careful to live a blameless life— when will you come to help me?
I will lead a life of integrity in my own home.
3 I will refuse to look at anything vile and vulgar. I hate all who deal crookedly; I will have nothing to do with them.
The verse gives us some guidelines that we would do well to live by:
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Have no tolerance for evil.
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Closely monitor the type of people you allow to influence you
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Recognize your need for divine help
So….. the big question to ask ourselves here today is: “Are you who you claim to be?”
Understand that God’s goal for you through your integrity isn’t to take away all of your fun, like it might look on the surface. He wants so much more for you than that, dear one! His goal is to “position you as a clean, pure, available recipient of His best, most fulfilling blessings.” He needs you to leave all of these compromising distractions behind so that He can fill you with His best!
That’s what I want and I hope you want it, too! Let;s dig deep today, my dear friends, so that we can once and for all be a complete open, pure vessel ready for God’s best!
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Let’s Pray:
Dear Lord, You know how hard it is for us to let go of these worldly pleasures so I ask You to please kelp give each and every one of us the strength and courage we need today to stand for YOU and Your best for us! Impress upon our minds, hearts and soul what You need us to stop compromising in and help us to kick it all to the curb! We want to begin living the same life in private that we profess to live in public. We want YOur best, Lord, and although it won;t be easy, we know it will be worth it! In Your Son’s pure name we pray, amen <3
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Your Assignment:
What do you participate in right now that weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, and/ or takes the relish off spiritual things? Please share with us in a comment below….
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After you complete this assignment, then go back to your Facebook Group and see what Megan has for us for our daily activity. I’m sure it is going to be interesting!! If you do not belong to one of our FB Groups, and you wish to be added, please send us an email to: GirlfriendsCoffeeHour@gmail.com, and we’ll be happy to add you!!
Join us back here tomorrow where we will discuss the next chapter of this section: The Three Percent DIfference.
Be a blessing,
Megan <3
…don’t forget to read what the men are up to over on Craig’s blog…
