CONCERT OF PRAYER

Pray Week 751

“Dishonest in Little”

Luke 16:10 (ESV)   “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.

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The ‘No Child Left Behind’ law is being blamed for the projection that eighty-two percent of the nation’s schools are expected to fail to meet education proficiency targets.  This means a loss of federal aid to already financially strapped school systems.  The recent Atlanta cheating scandal is only the tip of the iceberg of a growing number of teacher-cheating allegations across the United States.  “When test scores are all that matter, some educators feel pressured to get the scores they need by hook or by crook,” says Robert Schaeffer, a spokesman for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing.  “The higher the stakes, the greater the incentive to manipulate, to cheat.”

What makes normally honest people do dishonest things?

Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God. – Proverbs 30:7

Agur, the writer of this Proverb, knew that there are pressures in life that drive wrong behaviors.  The need for money drove the Atlanta school administrators to order their teachers to change test scores.  The need for their job drove the teachers to follow the order even though they knew it was wrong.  The love of money or the need for it is a powerful force that drives dishonest behaviors.

When filling out your income taxes, do you stretch the truth a bit about the value of that donation, or the mileage traveled?  How about on your travel expense report?  How many of your employer’s office supplies can be found in your desk at home or in your child’s book bag?  Are you faithful in the stewardship of your tithes?  Did you fail to mention to the cashier that they forgot to charge you for an item or gave you too much money back in change?

Did your friend enjoy that movie you duplicated or the song you downloaded without paying?  Do you make copies of copyrighted material to avoid purchasing them?  How long will you continue to enjoy free cable before you notify the company that they failed to turn it off?  How many times have you loaded that single user software license on computers other than your own?  Do you conduct personal business or engage in idle social chatter while being paid by your employer to do work?  Do you declare a senior discount or underage child to pay less admission when in fact neither is true?  How many personal copies have you made on your employer’s copy machine?

While it is true that there are much ‘bigger’ crimes of dishonesty, it is in the everyday living however that we become calloused to the truth that we too are violating God’s commandment not to steal.

We have to come to the heart realization that we own nothing and it is by the grace of God that we are appointed as His stewards over what we do have.  God will entrust more and more to us as we demonstrate our trustworthiness with what he has started us out with.  No matter how we try to rationalize our actions, when we cheat and steal, whether large or small, we violate God’s commandment.  Pray for an honest heart and pray for the strength to right things that are wrong and begin fresh and anew.

Close in prayer, thanksgiving & dedication of your work to the glory of God