¹⁸ Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth. (1 John 3:18 CSB)

My father used to always say, “You can’t fool kids or dogs.” I thought this was odd because it is actually really easy to fool them both. But what he meant was when it came to a man’s character within. My dad felt like kids and dog could see through that pretty easily.

Maybe he was right, but regardless, it represented to me the need to have integrity inwardly and to display it externally. I found the easiest way to do this was through action and truth.

When our actions line up with our truth and we deal with others with integrity, it becomes very obvious in our lives.

This scripture also relates to having love in how we speak, but not just there. Effectively it is saying walk the walk, don’t just talk the talk.

We can often talk a good game but when it comes to living that game we fall down. This most often happens in secret where we think we are not compromising how others view us. However, like my dad, I think people can see through this and if our integrity is weak it shows up in small ways.

Thus, focusing on love in our action and truth should provide the impetus to keeping integrity in our interior life.