All right, well, I hope you're as excited as I am about the new year, and even more specific than that, about the possibilities, the possibilities in your life. I'm excited about the possibilities in my life, things that God has given me and allowed me to do. I think we ought to take time. It would serve us well to think about all that God has given us. One, to be grateful, but two, to be mindful of our responsibility with what God has given us. He's given us today. We've got an opportunity to work and serve him. We understand that tomorrow's not promised. Nevertheless, we're still supposed to live or live in such a way that we could live a full life on this earth. There's this balance. We need to keep our mind on heaven, but we're also supposed to take care of our, I would say, worldly responsibilities. If you're a parent, if you're a mom, dad, if you're an employee, employer, You know, we have responsibilities as Christians, as citizens, and God wants us to be the best we possibly can for His glory, and we ought to want to be the best witness we can be for Christ. And I think when we use the opportunities that God has given us, and we choose to deliberately grow and take initiative, We gain self-respect for one thing, but God gets glory on the other hand. We're going to look at a passage of Scripture. I'm going through the Bible again, and so I'm in Genesis, and I'm certain a lot of my devotions will, for the next month or so, will come out of Genesis. Some of them I've probably shared before on the podcast, but I hope you'll forgive me because I need reminded, and I reckon if I do, you probably do as well. We're gonna look at Genesis chapter 20. This is a narrative of Abraham's journeying through Canaan land. In this passage, he goes to the land of Gerar, He meets a king by the name of Abimelech, and before he arrives, fear settles in. And he tells his dear wife, Sarah, I need you to tell the citizens of this area that you're my sister. Don't let on that you and I are husband and wife. Now, Abraham did this before in the land of Egypt, and he was reproved by God, and God in His mercy still protected him. That's going to take place here as well. But we learned something. There's a statement made by the king of Gerar, Abimelech, that is worth our notice. So let me read this. Genesis 20 verse 1 through 6. And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister. And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken, for she is a man's wife. But Abimelech had not come near her, and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation? Said he not unto me, She is my sister? And she, even she herself said, he is my brother. In the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this. Verse six, and God said unto him in a dream, yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart, for I also withheld thee from sinning against me. Therefore suffered I thee not to touch her. Let me clear up some things that may have come to your mind as I read this. Why did God protect Abraham and Sarah? Well, God had promised to them that He was going to give them a child, a miracle baby. a son of promise. We know him to be Isaac, and he is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, Jacob or the nation of Israel would come. And so God has kept his protective hand upon this dear couple in spite of their shortcomings and failures, because he's got an overriding plan that extends beyond their lives. Now, what I want to zero in on, though, is the statement that King Abimelech made. After the Lord comes to him and warns him, his response is, "'In the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this.'" What he's saying there is, I was following the dictates of my own conscience concerning right and wrong. And in my conscience, I did no wrong. I was not privy to the relationship between her and Abraham. God says, "'Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart.'" And that's why God spared Abimelech. What I want to point out here is this. God pays attention to integrity. Whether you're saved or lost, God pays attention to integrity. What is integrity? Integrity is being true to yourself, being true to that which you know is right. The Apostle Paul said it this way in Acts chapter 24 verse 16. He says, "...and herein do I always exercise myself to have a conscience void of offense toward God and toward man." Ladies and gentlemen, can I tell you that A person's dignity and self-respect is directly related to their integrity, to the maintenance of their integrity. The man who is able to maintain his integrity, doing what he's doing right according to his own conscience, can look himself in the mirror and sleep at night. He can sleep with a good conscience. He can walk with some self-respect. I'm not talking about vainglory, but I'm talking about self-respect. I believe we've got a society today of people who their minds have been so corrupted through the internet and things like that. They've forfeited their integrity in regards to morality and purity. It has affected their own self-respect. And when your self-respect is low, it's hard for you to be motivated to do anything. You walk around with gloom and doom. You're already in defeat when the battle comes. But the person who has integrity, who maintains that integrity, cultivates, protects his integrity, is a person that will have the ear and the eye of God on them, the blessing of God. It is interesting that when Job was going through the great trials of his life, one of the things that stands out is his integrity. His own wife, who obviously was suffering as much as Job, said to him in Job 2, I think it's verse 15, said, Does thou maintain that integrity? Curse God and die. She said it like this. Does thou still maintain that integrity? She believed, she understood the force in the leverage of integrity and even understood that God paid attention to it. And so in her mind, one, she's thinking, well, you're going through this suffering and maybe it's because of your integrity. Well, if you want to end your suffering, forfeit your integrity and God will kill you. God will take you home. That's pretty rough counsel. Unfortunately, Job didn't listen to that. Job maintained his integrity. Something we learned there, though, is the devil couldn't steal Job's integrity. He could take Job's property, he could take Job's relationships, and he could take Job's health, his own health, but he couldn't take Job's integrity. When somebody loses their integrity, They gave it up. It wasn't stolen. They gave it up. And the most important thing you have for you right now is the ability to maintain your integrity. Maybe you say, preacher, I have lost my integrity. I messed up. You know what? You can have a bad reputation because of bad character, But the blessing is, when you get things right with God, which you are able to do at any moment, if you will believe that God is faithful and trust Him to forgive you, turn from the sins that you know are forfeiting your integrity, and get on the path that God wants you to walk, you will discover that self-respect coming back. Galatians chapter 6 verse 4, one of my favorite verses, says this, Let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone and not in another. For I hope this year, this year, integrity will be important to you. Self-respect will be important to you. Doing what is right according to your conscience. And may God's Word help dictate what is right and wrong according to our conscience. Because obviously our conscience can be programmed and can be deceived. did not know Sarah was Abraham's wife. He still did what was right, but now that he knew, now that he discovered what the truth was, he complied. Well, I better let this go. It's been a long podcast, but I hope you have a fantastic week, and thanks for tuning in.