"I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord...of justice and might." Micah 3:8
Every person who truly follows Jesus has what is needed to walk with integrity on Planet Earth.
What do they have?
All real Christians have the Holy Spirit of God living inside to guide their steps.
Do challenges come that try to interfere with God's desire for us?
Yes. In fact, I dealt with one recently.
Earlier this week I bought some goat cheese and a fruit/nut mix at the grocery store. These items should have cost $14, but the cashier only charged me $8. I paid, knowing full well that this did not seem right, but I did not bother to say anything, nor did I look at the receipt when it was handed to me.
I left the store and tried to suppress any guilt by rationalizing, "I guess one of the items must have been on special--besides, I am in a hurry right now"; however, Jesus was not impressed with these rationalizations used to justify my actions, so.....
over the next couple of days Holy Spirit kept speaking to me about this incident, reminding me that I needed to take a look at that receipt.
When I did finally view the receipt, I saw that I had not been charged for the fruit/nut mix.
Why had Holy Spirit kept bringing this matter to my mind? Because our God desires complete honesty from His people.
"Ok, on my next trip to the store I will go to customer service and tell them I wasn't charged for this item."
The next time I went grocery shopping, I went over to customer service and told the woman what happened. She looked directly at me with a puzzled expression on her face, and then she glanced over at another close-by employee as if to say, "Can you believe it? This woman is crazy, she wants to pay for an item that was not on her receipt. The store would never have known."
I'm not sure if those were her actual thoughts, but what I am sure of is this---No, the store might have never known, but my Lord Jesus knew all about it, and He wanted me to make things right.
Would Jesus be that strict?
Actually, yes--He wants His followers to walk with complete integrity at all times.
"Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord." Proverbs 11:1
I got another bag of the same type fruit/nut mix from the shelf so the woman in customer service would know what amount to charge me.
She smiled and said, "Thank you, a lot of people would not have done this".
I told the woman, "In times past I wouldn't have been honest, but now I am a follower of Jesus, and this is what He requires of me."
So.....
Thanks to Holy Spirit this story has a good ending. I left the store feeling great because I did the right thing. I had defeated that fleshy pull to ignore a wrong, and I had turned this situation into a great opportunity to witness about our awesome Creator God.
Praises to The wonderful Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus!