Daily Encouragement: Year 1, Day 32
Adapted from Handbook to Leadership
Personal Development: Integrity
David knew that God was pleased with integrity. Meditation on this passage produces rich reward. Richard Baxter, writing on the importance of integrity in pastoral leadership, makes a statement that is crucial for any Christian to consider:
Take heed to yourselves, lest your example contradict your doctrine, and lest you lay such stumbling-blocks before the blind, as may be the occasion of their ruin; lest you unsay with your lives, what you say with your tongues; and be the greatest hinderers of the success of your own labours. It much hindereth our work, when other men are all the week long contradicting to poor people in private, that which we have been speaking to them from the Word of God in public . . . but it will much more hinder your work, if you contradict yourselves, and if your actions give your tongue the lie, and if you build up an hour or two with your mouths and all the week after pull down with your hands . . . He that means as he speaks, will surely do as he speaks.*
This old English “pastor to pastors” has a wise word for any Christian who wants to encourage those around him or her: “do it right.” Read his quote again and think about the implications for your own life as a Christian with integrity.
*Quote from Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1989), 63.