Honesty Pays!
A customer who ate at Randy’s Southside Diner in Grand Junction unluckily left $3,000 in a bank envelope at his booth. Fortunately, his busboy was Johnny Duckworth. Johnny gave it to his boss, who through the ATM bank slip in the envelope was able to track down the rightful owner. That unnamed person gave Johnny a $300 tip, but strangers started a “gofundme” page for the struggling Duckworth and have raised nearly $4000 for the young man. In an interview, he said he did not for a moment consider keeping the money, adding, “I work for a living.”
You’ve not likely had honesty pay so well for you. At least not financially. But, as the proverbial adage goes, “honesty does pay.” How?
- In reputation. Honestly builds businesses, friendships, leadership, and the like, when people have implicit confidence in your word (cf. Proverbs 14:25).
- In relationships. People trust you and are closer to you when you are honest with them. The opposite is true, too, that people keep their emotional distance from you if you are dishonest (Ephesians 4:25).
- In righteousness. Your character is built through dedication to unconditional truthfulness (Proverbs 12:17).
- In reliability. Who will people come to, lean on, and go to? The honest. They know where they stand with such a one (Proverbs 12:19).
- In respect. While you may fear hurting feelings and alienating others through courageous honesty, you gain the admiration of most through transparency and scrupulous speech and behavior (1 Kings 22:13-14).
Sadly, doing the right thing was once routine, but now it merits newsworthiness. May the tribe of Johnny Duckworths increase. When we as Christians are renowned for our kind honesty, we will draw a world in search of goodness and trustworthiness to the One who “cannot lie” (Titus 1:2).
Wall Street Ethics
Byron Sherwin, in his book WHY BE GOOD, sarcastically recalls, "Once I was browsing in a bookstore when I saw a huge volume with an intriguing title: WALL STREET ETHICS. I opened it eagerly only to find that each of its hundreds of pages was blank."
When we read this at IE, we were skeptical. So we did a little research and it turned out the book is real. It's entitled THE COMPLETE BOOK OF WALL STREET ETHICS by Jay L. Walker and was published by William Morrow & Co., April 1987.
Writes one reviewer, "If you are not familiar with this book, it is a joke, and a pretty good one. The pages are all blank. … Today, after so many new Wall Street scandals, it probably needs to be updated with a new edition with more blank pages."
How would a book that recorded all of the things that you have done to earn your place in heaven read? The only possible answer is that its pages would all be blank. Not only that, but no matter how hard you tried, all of the updated editions would only add more blank pages. That's because nothing that we do with the motive of self-justification will ever be acceptable to God. Rather, earning the prize of heaven requires a righteousness that is perfect, not only in every action, but in every motive behind every action. It requires the righteousness of Christ.
"As the Scriptures say, "No one is righteous--not even one" (Romans 3:10, NLT).
The Creeping Influence of Bad Habits
(The following illustration has applicatoin for both "bad" habits and "good" habits alike. As such, this illustration will appear in the database twice, with alternative applications dealing with both types of habits.)
Bad habits can kind of creep up on you. You're fine. You're handling them. Until ... you're not.
Imagine that you have an ice cube sitting on the table in front of you. The room is cold and you can see your breath. It is currently twenty-five degrees. Ever so slowly, the room begins to heat up. Twenty-six degrees. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. The ice cube is still sitting on the table in front of you. Twenty-nine degrees. Thirty. Thirty-one. Still, nothing has happened. Then, thirty-two degrees. The ice begins to melt. A one-degree shift, seemingly no different from the temperature increases before it, has unlocked a huge change. [Effects] are often the result of many previous actions, which build up ... unleash[ing] a major change. This pattern shows up everywhere. Cancer spends 80 percent of its life undetectable, then takes over the body in months. Bamboo can barely be seen for the first five years as it builds extensive root systems underground before exploding ninety feet into the air within six weeks.
Bad habits are a lot like those stealthy bamboo shoots. They seem to be nothing to be worried about. They don't seem to be having any significant impact on your life or well being. Until one day, you can't keep them underground any longer. The negative impacts burst through the surface, and bam! Suddnely you have a 50 foot tall bamboo stalk casting shade over your entire existence.
Don't be duped. Those small, bad habits can turn into serious problems quickly. That is why we are cautioned by Scripture to take mastery over our attitudes and action before they take mastery over us.
"All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything" (1 Corinthians 6:12, ESV).
"Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up" (Galatians 6:7-9, ESV).