who pile up stolen goods!
You get rich by cheating others.
How long will this go on?’
~ Habakkuk 2:6b (NIRV)
Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before.
~ 1 Thessalonians 4:11 (NLT)
At appears, Lord, that you are annoyed when your people try to live off the efforts of others. You want us to do our own work and to have legitimate jobs. You want your people to live quietly instead of angling for deals through a lot of questionable fast talking. In short, you expect us to maintain a high level of integrity. I confess, though, that there are times when I take short-cuts. I don't do it a lot. But it does taint my integrity. So, I am asking you apply the blood that Jesus poured out at the cross to restore my integrity. Fill me with your Holy Spirit so that I can live with total integrity. I want to do this so that it brings honor to you. Amen.
Challenging Words
- live off-- to depend on someone else to support you. For example, "The young man did not like the idea of doing hard work, so he figured out how to live off his family."
- legitimate -- lawful, proper, authorized, perfectly legal
- angling -- the act of positioning yourself so that you have an advantage over someone
- fast talking -- If someone is trying to confuse you with a lot of words or by speaking quickly, so that you can't really think about what they are saying, they are fast talking.
- taint -- to turn something good into something bad by adding something dangerous or dirty to it, to pollute. For example, "Don't throw your garbage into the river or the garbage will taint it. Then the water will be dirty and undrinkable."
- integrity -- the state of being honest and fair, even when no one is looking