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.