Encouraging Word

Intro
Hi, this is Dorette Schaal with an encouraging word for your day. Starting in 2 weeks, I will be spending several weeks on the subject of Loving Like Jesus. Last year, we did 7 weeks of concentrated study on our own” Love Project”, which encouraged us to walk in love, and exhibit the 7 main characteristics of a loving person. So as a review and follow up, we are going to spend this week being encouraged and motivated to walk in love and demonstrate love as a way of life through generosity. Be encouraged today! We can make a lifelong impact on our world by loving others through being honest.

Sunday
Live in truth! Doesn’t that sound like the best idea ever? I know in a real world where it is acceptable to distort the truth and to live in one’s own perception of reality, being a person who tells the truth and lives in truth is a rare thing. Let’s not make it a rare thing in our life. In John 8:32 it says that when we know the truth we know, the truth will set us free. The Message Bible says it this way, if we stick to what Jesus has told us, we are truly His disciples and we will experience the truth and the truth will free us. I think one of the most fabulous things about being a Christians is being able to experience freedom. When we realize that freedom in our lives is connected with truthful living, it should make us even more conscious of how we live our life. Honesty and a pure life go hand in hand. If we want to be clean before the Lord, our words, our actions and our thoughts are to be consistently loving. One thing I have discovered in my own life is that we never outgrow the desire to be told the truth. As children, we wanted to know the truth, will it hurt, will it be hard, will you keep your promise, are as adults we still want the truth. Will the product really do what you say it will, are there any hidden charges, will I have to receive emails from thousands of other companies because I purchased something from yours? Maybe you haven’t had that scenario happen to you, but some of us have. We believe the ad, and either we don’t get what we paid for, there are hidden charges that being showing up on your credit card statement, or you get more junk email than you ever wanted! And sometimes a virus in your computer as a bonus. Let’s not be like the world. We live a higher standard. Our standard is truth and honesty. Utter honesty is clearly refreshing in our world. Let’s be the ones that others say about us, they always are honest, if you need to know the truth, ask them, or their life is full of integrity and they are totally trustworthy. What a great reputation we can have if our words, thoughts and deeds are filled with truth and honesty.

Monday
A new definition of honesty is a loving consistency in speech, thought and action. What we say, what we think and what we do can all be constant, or be in line with the truth. Think back in your own life. You probably have a memory of a time or even many times when you weren’t told the truth, or someone wasn’t honest to you. Or perhaps you were told the truth about someone else who wasn’t being honest with you. Most often those kinds of memories are not pleasant. You feel like you were deceived. Once you have felt something like those emotions, usually you would think that because of how it made us felt, you would never want to do something like that to someone else. Sometimes that happens, and sometimes not. Whatever the case, let’s make sure that from this point on, whenever we are given the opportunity to speak truth, to do it in love. Any time you are not sure whether to say something or not, ask yourself, do my words reflect every trait of a loving person? Then think about the other attributes of love that we have talked about up to this point. Do my words demonstrate kindness, patience, forgiveness, courtesy, humility, generosity and most definitely honesty. What would your relationships look like if that was your criteria for any words that come out of your mouth? I think we would live in much happier homes, more peaceful communities, and even a better world. We hear it often, in our green world to think locally and globally. We can do that with our words too……start where you are the little ripple can begin an even bigger ripple around you. We do affect our world one life at a time. So measure your thoughts, think on things that are pure, godly and honest. Measure your words, by saying only things that are filled with truth. And then measure you actions. Does what you are about to do line up with the characteristics that show love as a way of life? They can, and they should. Let’s be the ones who do that consistently.

Tuesday
Most of us know what honesty is. It is being a person who tells and lives in truth. If we look at the opposite side, we should find out what telling the truth does not mean. We can damage the lives of those we love if we are brutally honest with our words.

According to Gary Chapman in Love as a Way of Life, telling the truth does not mean: Telling everything that we have knowledge of. We don’t want to damage a reputation by telling everything we know to everyone we know. You probably know someone like that! You have to be careful when you are around them, because you know whatever private thing you might tell them will be public knowledge.

Verbalizing all of your emotions. It can be detrimental to speak forth everything you feel, all the time. Feelings and emotions need a filter.

Making an excuse to be unloving. Allowing your emotions to control your behavior and expressing them under the guise of honesty stimulates additional negative emotions in the other person’s mind.

Telling secrets for personal gain. Don’t sacrifice truth on the altar of success or even just a feeling of being one up on another person, or having the last word.

Jeopardizing justice. Men and women of integrity will not tell everything when to do so would be detriment to the cause of justice. (An example of this would be the families who hid Jewish citizens to protect them from the Nazis.)

When we live truthfully, we are being authentic. We are being people of integrity. That is who we are called to be. When we live in truth, we are free to love others for who they really are. As we live honestly we can reveal who we really are. What a wonderful way to live. Freely loving others, and letting others know the real us.

Wednesday
“If you have nothing nice to say, saying nothing at all.” Those famous words are from the movie Bambi. A very profound thought from the mouth of a bunny named Thumper! The lesson behind it is don’t say things that aren’t nice. Untruthful words, are not nice! Sometimes truthful words said in a harsh ways are not nice as well. The lesson is to watch what we say and how we say it. Life and death are in the power of the tongue. The Bible says that exactly. We are to speak the truth in love, and if we really want to be people who demonstrate love as a way of life, not only will we think about what we say before we say it, we will watch the manner in which we say it as well. Body language and timing are very crucial in showing love through our words. When someone is hurting, is not the time to feel the need to truthfully say that you told them so……about whatever ! Being a loving person is one who uses their words to build and encourage. They ask God to give them wisdom to confront situations in a truthful way, in the right time, and the right setting. The seeds we plant with our words will eventually grow. What do we want our words to go up and become? They do produce after their own kind. And usually the seed doesn’t fall to far from the tree. Do you want your legacy to be one of encouragement, and a life lived in the truth? Or do you want your legacy to be of a deceitful life, where perception and reality were disconnected? As people who serve the Lord, who have made a decision to follow Christ, our words should be rock solid. There should be no doubt that every time we open our mouth, we speak truth. We are promise keepers, we are truth tellers, we live our lives honestly, and we will use our words to bring life, help, hope, encouragement and blessing to those around us.

Thursday
When we live truthfully, we are being authentic. We are being people of integrity. Loving with integrity means being open about our weaknesses. We may want to appear better than we are, but that is not living authentically. Loving with integrity means recognizing how important the truth really is. Christians live on a higher plane, just because others don’t tell the truth, doesn’t mean we can lower our standard. We must remember that thinking, speaking and living in the truth is what we do as Christians. It is who we are. The life of a truth teller continues to influence others even after death. Loving with integrity means being consistent in our life choices. Our body language speaks as much as our eyes or our words, and they must be consistent. They should all reflect the same truth. Loving with integrity means being a risk taker for the sake of the truth. If confrontation is hard for you, this may be a difficult point. It may not be comfortable, but it is essential. Integrity calls us to take the risk of loving others by telling them the truth when it is needed. Loving with integrity also means keeping your promises. It takes only one promise left unfulfilled for someone to question your integrity. If we really want to love with integrity, let’s do those five things….be open about our weaknesses, recognize the importance of truth, be consistent in thoughts, words and deeds, take necessary risks to live in truth, and keep our promises. When we promise something, let’s stick with our promise. Let’s do everything within our power to hold to our vows to our spouse, or our promises toildren, or our commitment to our employer/employees. If we want to live authentically, and love authentically, let’s fight for truth, let’s stand up for what is right, and let’s live life with integrity. The world is watching. Let’s show them how Christ would do it, by how we live! Make those words of Paul part of your life, follow me, like I follow Christ.

Friday
We ended yesterday with the thought, that the world is watching us as believers. Let’s live how Christ would live. Let others follow me, like I am following Christ, just like Paul said. Obviously we are not perfect like Jesus, but we have been given power to live life boldly, authentically, and in truth. The tools are ours, all we have to do is operate in them. How does that world out in the real world? It can happen in lots of ways. As we finish out this week talking about honesty as one of the foundation principles of a loving life, I think it is good to see the connection of honesty with every other trait we have talked about so far.

Think of how honesty is tied to each of these traits with an example of how to put it into action.

Kindness- A kind person will be honest- I love the kind honesty of a friend who tells me when I have lipstick on my teeth, or a thread hanging off of my jacket.

Patience – A patient person will be honest – There is a gentle way to say I wish you were on time. It could sound like this. You are important enough in my life to wait for, but when you take up my time by being late, I have to reconfigure my schedule.

Forgiveness – A forgiving person will be honest. I choose to forgive, even when I don’t feel like it, because an honest person realizes forgiveness isn’t based on feelings, it is a choice.

Courtesy – A courteous person will be honest. Excuse me, I didn’t realize that my car was in your way, or apologizing when your actions were selfish or haughty, by saying, please forgive my rude behavior, it was totally uncalled for.

Humility – Is living honestly . We know where we get our value from and we are not overinflated, or underinflated! We are a cracked pot – a jar of clay, but we hold a treasure that can’t be measured with human hands.

Generosity – A generous person will be honest. I would love to give to your cause, but I have already chosen to give to my church and the other charities that I support.

We can say things in a loving way, and still be kind, patient, forgiving, courteous, humble and generous. So this weekend, find a way to be more like Jesus. Act like He does. It is Biblical! We are told in Gal 5;1 to imitate Christ. Put the Word into practice today!

Saturday Eword for Kids
There is blackness in the little white lie. There is nothing little or white about telling things that are not true. We are talking about being honest today, as one of the ways that we can show love to those around us. Honesty really is speaking truth. It is revealing who you really are. It is being consistent in what we say, what we think and what we do. The problem with lies is that you have to keep telling more of them. You start with one, and sooner than you know it, you have to tell another one to cover the tracks of your last lie. Life gets really complicated. Not only complicated, but it can be exhausting. The one who told the lie has to remember what lie they told to what person, and then have to keep up the story. Living in truth is so much better. You probably remember the story of Chicken Little when he told everyone the sky was falling. Because it was just an acorn that fell, nobody believed him when there really was something to be concerned about. It’s a lot like the little boy who cried wolf. We need to speak the truth, so that when we really do need help, no one will question our honesty. We live in a world where everybody lies right? No! And you don’t have to. Just because everybody else does it, doesn’t make it right! If you are asked to lie for someone, just say no. We can be the ones who think the truth, say the truth and live the truth? Does that sound hard? It could be, but there are great rewards for living in the truth, so start today….be a truth teller, a promise keeper, and an honest person.