In our world, a little dishonesty is okay if you can get away with it and it helps you get ahead.

  • Businesses use puffery in advertisements to excite us into buying their products.
  • Businesses lie about their markups and hours so they can squeeze a little more profit from us.

We accept this and look the other way.

If everyone else is doing it, why can’t I? Won’t God measure my righteousness on a graded curve, based upon how I compare with others?

That’s not the point.

Dishonesty and misrepresenting reality rot us on the inside. Like Proverbs 19:1 says, “Better to be poor and honest than to be dishonest and a fool.”

It’s so much better to work at being right inside than at looking good on the outside.

 

Today’s Integrity Moment is adapted with permission from the writings of Phillip Cohen.