People who lie, steal or cheat will often try the present themselves as trustworthy people, but as others become familiar with the type of person he or she is, those types of people are soon recognized to be untrustworthy. I hope this lesson can be of help to youth ministries, family devotionals, family councils and home evenings. Tonight’s topic is on the topic of a positive reputation.

Object lesson: tape, a piece of paper, and a very fluffy sweater.

Roll up a strip of masking tape into a ring. Press the ring of tape  (sticky side on the outside ) against a piece of paper and it can pick up that paper. Now, start pressing different parts of the tape against a fluffy sweater and the tape begins picking up the lint from the sweater. Eventually the piece of tape will have so much lint it can no longer pick up the paper.

This can be compared to the loss of a positive reputation. As people start performing acts of stealing or cheating or lying, each of those acts can be compared as a piece of lint that gets pressed against the tape of one’s integrity. As you press more acts of dishonesty against the tape, the tape becomes filled with the litter of dishonesty. The dishonest person becomes recognized as the type of person they really are.

My invitation is for each of us to make a stronger effort to avoid the lived and to maintain as much integrity as we can. Often it is easier to avoid the lint in the first place rather than trying to remove the lint later. Lint can be removed by repentance, recompense, and a commitment to avoid doing such acts in the future.

If you have an alternative way to present this concept, please feel free to share it in the comment section of the blog. Thanks