“16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.”

This is the 9th commandment God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. It says, do not lie about other people, but it really is much more than that. It is about our hearts. Do we have an honest and true heart, or do we have a lying and deceitful heart? Even if you are lying about something you did, you are lying to another person and still breaking this commandment.

Integrity and honesty mean that you always tell the truth. This is very important to God and God can always see our hearts. He always knows the truth and he always knows when we lie. Having integrity can also be seen in the way you do things. If you have integrity you always do things to the best of your ability and you are always true to yourself. You know who you are in the eyes of God and you don’t change because of other people.

Summer time is here and we all know sometimes it can be difficult to get students to come to class when they are busy playing outside.

A great strategy for this is to have them do something less exciting right before class. For example if class is at 5 PM maybe at 4:30 have them clean their room. When its time for karate they will jump at the chance to do somethin fun.

If they are outside riding their bikes, or playing video games, it can be a struggle to get them to change gears.

“32 Better a patient person than a warrior,

one with self-control than one who takes a city.”

This verse from proverbs says it is better to be patient than to be a warrior. It is better to have self control than it is to defeat a city. Sometimes rather than arguing it is better to walk away. Rather than talking back to mom and dad it's better to do what they are telling you.

“24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

To deny yourself means that you do what God says to do instead of what you want to do. We might want to do something we know is wrong, like steal or lie, but we need to use self-discipline to do what God wants us to do. We might have a friend who tries to get us to do something we know is wrong, but we have to use self-discipline to tell them no.