Would You Like Some Ground Integrity With That?

Posted on February 3, 2016 by America's Keswick in Freedom Fighters

integrity word in metal type

“Who may worship in Your sanctuary, LORD? Who may enter Your presence on Your holy hill? “ ~Psalm 15:1 (NLT)

I recently read something that a 5 to 1 ratio of organic honey (Does this mean there is a synthetic?) to Himalayan Pink salt will replenish the body of all 84 elements it needs to live. Just take a tablespoon of this concoction before you go to sleep and when you wake the next morning you can hit the ground running. So I went out and spent 5 dollars on 5 ounces on Himalayan Pink Salt…I think we have the honey in the cupboard? (Hope it ain’t synthetic or this may not work)

The results? Well I’ve have been grinding the salt on pizza and then noticing my wife roll her eyes at me over the salt. “5 dollars for salt, why?” she has asked. To which I reply that a majority of those elements that I’m missing are making my slice of sausage, mushroom, black olive, and spinach pizza taste pretty good. Not too sure about those health benefits but…ah who am I kidding? I’ve kinda compromised the integrity of that whole Himalayan Pink Salt with organic honey recipe, haven’t I?

So the following morning I got to wondering (which is something I do after I’ve done something dumb) isn’t this something we do in our everyday Christian walk? So since I’ve been paging through Chuck Swindoll’s book “Living Beyond The Daily Grind” as of late I thought I’d look and see what Chuck had to say on what I’ve done to the Himalayan Pink Salt with organic honey recipe. What I got was Psalm 15.

Both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson give the Psalm a nod in some fashion. Franklin calls this a “Gentlemen’s Psalm” while Jefferson says the Psalm is “The portrait of a good man by the most sublime of poets, for your imitation.” In both cases these founding fathers agree that this Psalm speaks to a man’s integrity and Swindoll spoke to me through a chapter on the grind of weakened integrity. As a matter of fact Swindoll wrote that, “It should come as no surprise to no one that ours is a day of weakened integrity.”

So for today we are gonna give a kinda “background” to this phenomenon titled Psalm 15. There are Psalms that David wrote that we can nail a reason behind (Psalm 51 for example) but all we can get with Psalm 15 is that David describes what a citizen of Zion looks like. But if we run this through the Cross like Swindoll does we can see a fulfillment in our unchanged eternal position in God’s eyes (Chuck says that last

diddy). There’s a lot things that happens when we give our hearts to Jesus and here’s the short list:

1. We become a child of God (John 1:12)

2. We are adopted into His family forever (Romans 8:14-17)

3. We are sealed and secured (Ephesians 1:13)

4. We are delivered from darkness into God’s love (Colossians 1:13)

5. We become priests (1Peter 2:9)

Like I said that’s just the short list and it’s so cool to hold close to our hearts. We get to have a temporal fellowship with God AND receive the privilege of living under the power of The Holy Spirit BUT we got a flip side to this IF we decide to dabble in just a little sin…to quote Swindoll, “He may choose to sin and walk under the energy of his own flesh and thus break this temporal fellowship that is his to claim. When he does, he chooses to reject God’s power and blessing and moves immediately out of the realm of fellowship into the realm of divine discipline.”

Now don’t get yourself too amiss this as there is a remedy to make sure your fellowship with God is not permanently broken and that is, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) When I am with you all again I will hopefully be able to cover those things that we should be doing within the framework of Psalm 15 after all if we keep letting things fade from us our integrity will and NOT if inevitably weakened and our testimony to Jesus goes with it. Many folks look for those rewards they believe they will receive when they get pull into heaven’s shore but for me it’s all about four words to hear, “Well done, Enter in”. Everything else is just stuff. Amen?

Written by Chris Hughes: Graduate of The Colony of Mercy 11-2003 and serves on the Deacon Board at Trinity Alliance Church in Cologne NJ

The Daily Bible Reading: Psalm 34; Proverbs 3

Click Here to Download our 2016 Daily Bible Reading Plan

Daily Quote: “It is the work of the Church to keep on repeating God’s message to each generation of men until it is either accepted or rejected by those who hear.” ~A.W. Tozer

This Week’s Verse to Memorize: And being confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith ~Philippians 1:25 (NKJV)

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