Reset your posture

“Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool.” Proverbs 19:1

You may have seen in fancy shoe shops they have a machine to analyse your gait. They monitor how you walk, and then recommend shoes that will help improve your comfort. Sometimes they will advise you that for the sake of your back you need to make adjustments to your posture as you walk, or a physio may tell you that you need to change the way you sit because your posture is harmful. It is the same with us spiritually – we need to ensure our posture is correct.

A season of prayer and fasting is the ideal time to reset your posture. The posture God seeks us to have is one of integrity. He cares more that we walk with integrity than that we achieve wealth or worldly success.

So what does it mean for us to walk with integrity? The call to integrity is a call to both talk and walk in the way of Jesus. We are called to live a life marked by love, compassion, mercy, justice. That’s the sort of life Peter urges us to live: ““Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”” (1 Peter 3:10-12). That definition of integrity calls us to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, steering clear of hypocrisy, being people who don’t just say the right words but who live them out, being people who don’t just study the Bible and prayer but who apply what God teaches us into our daily life.

For us to adopt a posture of integrity it means taking our faith seriously. It means not being content just to go to church on Sunday and let the pastor feed us. It means committing to taking this season of prayer and fasting seriously, seeking to grow deeper in our relationship with God as we take ownership of our faith and strive to become more and more like Jesus every day.

Prayer focus

Ask the Holy Spirit to help you live a life marked by a posture of integrity. Ask Jesus to show you what areas of your life you need to become more like His example in today.