Back in the days when I was working for the late Earl Nightingale, I remember him saying, “There is no price too great to pay for creditability.” I have thought of that saying many times since then. Here is my question for you as we begin our time today: How many times do we have to catch another person in an outright lie until we begin to doubt everything else they say? The correct answer is once, because from that point on, we will begin to doubt everything else they have to say.

If you think about it, the whole system of justice in our country is based on truth. When we serve on a jury, what is the first thing they do? They swear us in by having us place our hand on the Bible and repeat this phrase, “I swear to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”

          And incidentally, the title for this column is “What destroys our creditability” and I will have the answer to this question before I conclude. What gave me this line of thinking is helping my daughter Paula write a devotional book, and I can promise you, it is good, really good. The first thing we did was come up with the title for the book, and she liked my suggestion, “Living and Loving the Word of God” and that’s it. Here is the background: Several months ago, Paula added me to her email list that also contained email addresses for about 100 of her lady friends. She has been sending out a short devotional each morning that contains an opening thought and then three or four selected scriptures that provide “creditability” for the thought.

She has been doing this faithfully, seven days a week, for well over a year. She started out just sending out verses of scripture to ladies in her church who were in the hospital, then she started doing videos of her reading portions of the Bible and sending it to them. Then, over time, she arrived with the method she is using today that I am telling you about. Now, she has more than enough copy for a very helpful book, and because I have written several books, she asked me to help her. I was able to help develop a format for her book and add a couple of sections that include “A Challenge” and “Now the Ball is in Your Court.”

It was in checking the multitude of scripture verses for accuracy that gave me the idea that I believe will help any of us. You don’t want to give several verses of scripture to someone and later have them say, “You made a mistake on this verse of scripture.” If this were the case, you would certainly lose some of your creditability. So here is how any of us lose it. The more mistakes the reader catches, the more we lose.

Here is a principle that every human being needs to understand: When we do anything that violates the laws of God, it is a mistake. When we rob, steal, murder, cheat, lie, or do anything that violates our sacred trust, we make a mistake. The fewer mistakes we make, the better off we will be. A simple apology will correct most of them, but not those that violate the law, murder for example. Amen.

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(Jim Davidson is an author, syndicated columnist, and Founder of the Bookcase for Every Child project. For a personalized copy of “Keep Your Fork” send $25 (includes P&H & TAX) to Jim Davidson, 2 Bentley Dr. Conway, AR 72034)