Integrity

Parent prep | Try to remember a time when you were disobedient, mischievous or guilty as a child. Be ready to share this story with your child because it is helpful to both you and your child when you make it personal.

Read together | Have you ever watched a cartoon where the character is trying to make a decision and they feel pulled between a right and wrong choice? Sometimes the artist draws an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other who try to turn them to do the right thing or the wrong thing.

Have you ever felt like your mind was pulling you between a right or wrong choice? I bet you have! Dana remembers, “Once, my dad told me not to play with the kitten in our garage, but it was so cute and so fluffy and I liked him so much. I played with the kitten. I walked inside and my dad looked down at me. “Did you play with the kitten?” If I told the truth, he’d be disappointed. So I lied. I said I didn’t, but the cat hair all over my clothes told the truth. My choices to disobey and to lie made a mess of things with my dad.”

Tell each other about a time you had to choose. What did you choose?

Let’s talk about a word you might know: integrity. Integrity means being whole, undivided; honest or making right choices. When it came to our kitten, integrity would have been obeying my dad or telling him the truth.

The person who wrote Hebrews wrote to tell God’s people how all their adventures with God pointed to Jesus. When Jesus died on the cross, He did it to make our lives whole. The writer asked the people to pray for them that they would have a clear conscience. A clear conscience means they were sure that they were making right choices. They also prayed that they’d live with honor. Because Jesus made us whole, we now have His power to choose to listen to the pull toward right choices. Let’s pray that we’ll both follow God’s pull toward integrity