HONESTY
Honesty must be a most misunderstood word. People think it means a lot of things that it does not. So many people think they are honest and they are fooling themselves. Get it? They are not even able to be honest with themselves. Why? What is the problem?
To be honest with myself, I must call things by their right names. For example, if I am afraid of something or someone, I may not want to admit it to anyone else, but I should admit it to myself. Still, most people do not want to think of themselves as afraid so they refuse to accept that they are, in fact, afraid. We have a word for this that has become popular in the past several years. That word is denial. We say, “He is in denial.” So, to call fear by its right name, I cannot be in denial.
If I am lazy, or rude, or selfish, or greedy, or ignorant, or even sinful, I may be in denial about all of that. I may refuse to acknowledge that one of these is a problem with me. Hey, you really can’t blame me. Would you want to go around thinking you were sinful all the time? The truth is that if you are sinful, you really should have it on your mind. If you are even just rude, you should think about it too. Otherwise, how will you correct yourself? And that’s just what is happening today. So many people have major personality defects that they are not willing to admit so they go un-corrected and the world is not a better place for it.
The first step in honesty, then, is to be honest with myself. I should take an inventory of what I am. My faults, of course, but also my good points. Get it all out on the table. Face everything. Maybe make a list. Put two columns. One for good and one for bad. Then give accurate names to all the items. Don’t be afraid. No one else needs to see the list. The only person who will be enlightened or surprised will be me.
Now, I can begin to evaluate and decide if any of the traits ought to be corrected, or maybe I can just go on as I am. If I find I want to change something, I can develop a strategy. I am too fat, so I go on a diet. I don’t smile enough, so I can figure out a way to remember to smile at certain people. There are self-help books to address such things. I know one that said that if I associate a wonderful event in my life, one that makes me smile, with a particular person’s face, I will smile whenever I see them. Try out some of these. They might work for you.
I found out some things about myself that I didn’t know. For instance, I thought that I would like to have a good selection of outerwear. I wanted a different jacket for each kind of weather I might encounter. So I bought a light windbreaker with some water-repellent qualities. I bought a lightly insulated leather bomber jacket for those crisp mornings. I bought a huge down parka for the really cold days of February and a moderately polyester-insulated parka for the moderate winter days. After the winter was over and the birds were singing in May, I took stock. I had worn the windbreaker probably twice and then the weather had turned cooler so I started wearing the lighter parka. I wore the parka the entire winter and into the spring until the weather was warmer again. I relied on just the one coat. The others still hung in the closet, rejected time and again for various reasons in favor of the moderate parka. I was amazed at what I really preferred. I preferred to wear one coat for all weather. This was plain. Socrates said “Know thyself,” and so we must if we are going to be honest with ourselves.
But if you are a Christian, you may be concerned about how God evaluates you. You may know that you are not being a good servant. You are being disobedient to some of God’s Word, the Bible. You have not wanted to admit this but now that you have gotten it all out on the table, you know it’s true. What to do?
We know that God wants us to confess. He is willing to listen mercifully to us. But going to Him about some item may be very difficult. We know, already, what He thinks of it. We know He would never give us permission to cultivate certain habits.
What to do when we are unwilling to change? Can we go to him and be honest about even this? Can we go to Christ and say, “I know that I am doing wrong but I am not willing to give it up. Can you help me to be willing?” How will He react to us if we do that? 1 John 2:1 says “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ….” What is an advocate? An advocate is someone who takes our part. He represents us to the officers of law. An attorney. Jesus Christ has taken on himself the position of our attorney. He represents us before the Father. He stands on our side. He is the supreme authority over creation. He is the supreme sacrifice for the sins of that creation. And he stands with us. If I can’t go to him and be honest about everything that is in my heart, who then, can I go to? The answer is yes. I can go to Christ and tell him all that is in my heart. In fact, it is the only way I can go to him.
Hebrews 4:12 tells me that Christ knows my heart better than I do. He is able to see what I hide from myself. Above, I said that I need to be brutally honest with myself and speak the truth about aspects of myself which I would never admit to any other human being. Even if I want to do that, I sometimes cannot succeed. I can have such a block in my mind that I can’t see the truth about myself. Christ sees beyond this block. He knows all. He can evaluate with far greater precision than I can. This is why the writer of the Psalms said “Search me, oh God, and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me.”
So, then, it is imperative that we are honest with self and then honest with God. But there is one more direction in which to project our honesty and that is toward one another. It says in James 5:16 ”Confess your faults, one to another”. I don’t mean that we are constantly on the phone with all our friends, belaboring them with details of our latest failures. No one wants that from us. But we can go out for coffee or visit one-on-one somewhere in a quiet room with our best Christian friend and confess. Our friend can pray for us and best of all, God will know and will bless us.
That’s the bottom line: blessing. A Christian wants nothing higher. Money? No. That’s temporary. Friends? They will fail you. Power? It will corrupt us. No, what the Christian really thrives on and luxuriates in is God’s blessing. The ultimate gain of being honest is blessing. I want that, don’t you?
To be honest with myself, I must call things by their right names. For example, if I am afraid of something or someone, I may not want to admit it to anyone else, but I should admit it to myself. Still, most people do not want to think of themselves as afraid so they refuse to accept that they are, in fact, afraid. We have a word for this that has become popular in the past several years. That word is denial. We say, “He is in denial.” So, to call fear by its right name, I cannot be in denial.
If I am lazy, or rude, or selfish, or greedy, or ignorant, or even sinful, I may be in denial about all of that. I may refuse to acknowledge that one of these is a problem with me. Hey, you really can’t blame me. Would you want to go around thinking you were sinful all the time? The truth is that if you are sinful, you really should have it on your mind. If you are even just rude, you should think about it too. Otherwise, how will you correct yourself? And that’s just what is happening today. So many people have major personality defects that they are not willing to admit so they go un-corrected and the world is not a better place for it.
The first step in honesty, then, is to be honest with myself. I should take an inventory of what I am. My faults, of course, but also my good points. Get it all out on the table. Face everything. Maybe make a list. Put two columns. One for good and one for bad. Then give accurate names to all the items. Don’t be afraid. No one else needs to see the list. The only person who will be enlightened or surprised will be me.
Now, I can begin to evaluate and decide if any of the traits ought to be corrected, or maybe I can just go on as I am. If I find I want to change something, I can develop a strategy. I am too fat, so I go on a diet. I don’t smile enough, so I can figure out a way to remember to smile at certain people. There are self-help books to address such things. I know one that said that if I associate a wonderful event in my life, one that makes me smile, with a particular person’s face, I will smile whenever I see them. Try out some of these. They might work for you.
I found out some things about myself that I didn’t know. For instance, I thought that I would like to have a good selection of outerwear. I wanted a different jacket for each kind of weather I might encounter. So I bought a light windbreaker with some water-repellent qualities. I bought a lightly insulated leather bomber jacket for those crisp mornings. I bought a huge down parka for the really cold days of February and a moderately polyester-insulated parka for the moderate winter days. After the winter was over and the birds were singing in May, I took stock. I had worn the windbreaker probably twice and then the weather had turned cooler so I started wearing the lighter parka. I wore the parka the entire winter and into the spring until the weather was warmer again. I relied on just the one coat. The others still hung in the closet, rejected time and again for various reasons in favor of the moderate parka. I was amazed at what I really preferred. I preferred to wear one coat for all weather. This was plain. Socrates said “Know thyself,” and so we must if we are going to be honest with ourselves.
But if you are a Christian, you may be concerned about how God evaluates you. You may know that you are not being a good servant. You are being disobedient to some of God’s Word, the Bible. You have not wanted to admit this but now that you have gotten it all out on the table, you know it’s true. What to do?
We know that God wants us to confess. He is willing to listen mercifully to us. But going to Him about some item may be very difficult. We know, already, what He thinks of it. We know He would never give us permission to cultivate certain habits.
What to do when we are unwilling to change? Can we go to him and be honest about even this? Can we go to Christ and say, “I know that I am doing wrong but I am not willing to give it up. Can you help me to be willing?” How will He react to us if we do that? 1 John 2:1 says “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ….” What is an advocate? An advocate is someone who takes our part. He represents us to the officers of law. An attorney. Jesus Christ has taken on himself the position of our attorney. He represents us before the Father. He stands on our side. He is the supreme authority over creation. He is the supreme sacrifice for the sins of that creation. And he stands with us. If I can’t go to him and be honest about everything that is in my heart, who then, can I go to? The answer is yes. I can go to Christ and tell him all that is in my heart. In fact, it is the only way I can go to him.
Hebrews 4:12 tells me that Christ knows my heart better than I do. He is able to see what I hide from myself. Above, I said that I need to be brutally honest with myself and speak the truth about aspects of myself which I would never admit to any other human being. Even if I want to do that, I sometimes cannot succeed. I can have such a block in my mind that I can’t see the truth about myself. Christ sees beyond this block. He knows all. He can evaluate with far greater precision than I can. This is why the writer of the Psalms said “Search me, oh God, and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me.”
So, then, it is imperative that we are honest with self and then honest with God. But there is one more direction in which to project our honesty and that is toward one another. It says in James 5:16 ”Confess your faults, one to another”. I don’t mean that we are constantly on the phone with all our friends, belaboring them with details of our latest failures. No one wants that from us. But we can go out for coffee or visit one-on-one somewhere in a quiet room with our best Christian friend and confess. Our friend can pray for us and best of all, God will know and will bless us.
That’s the bottom line: blessing. A Christian wants nothing higher. Money? No. That’s temporary. Friends? They will fail you. Power? It will corrupt us. No, what the Christian really thrives on and luxuriates in is God’s blessing. The ultimate gain of being honest is blessing. I want that, don’t you?
posted by Biblical Christianity at 3:36 AM
1 Comments:
Some good thoughts today. Especially the end reminded me of my devotions this moring. The devotions were on the fact that Satan is always trying to tempt us. I think when we fail, we sometimes get discouraged and feel like we are not good enough to even go to
God. Something I was reading said, "A holy character does not prevent temptation--Jesus was tempted. When Satan tempts us, his sparks fall upon tinder; but in Christ's case, it was like striking sparks on water; yet the enemy continued his evil work. Now, if the devil goes on striking when there is no result, how much more will he do it when he knows what inflammable stuff our hearts are made of. Though you become greatly sanctified by the Holy Spirit, expect that the great dog of hell will bark at you still...our hearts may glow with an angelic flame of love for Jesus, and yet the devil will try to bring you down to lukewarm uselessness. If you will tell me when God permits a Christian to lay aside his armor, I will tell you when Satan has left off temptation. Like the old knights in wartime, we must sleep with helmet and breastplate buckled on, for the arch-deceiver will seize our first unguarded moment to make us his prey. May the Lord keep us watchful in all seasons and grant us a final escape from the jaw of the lion and the paw of the bear."
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