I used to think integrity was primarily truth-telling, but I discovered truth-telling is only the tip of the iceberg. Integrity involves the entirety of a person, wholeness. We would have to be hard-pressed to eat a fruit that has bruises or has a worm in it. Integrity includes internal consistency of honesty as well as moral and ethical character. Enron and other prominent figures in sports or religion have failed due to a lack of integrity. Trust is quickly destroyed by a flaw that was tolerated in some aspect of a person’s inner being.
Each of our lives includes all of who we are in our workplace, home, church, privately or publicly.
How can we become people of integrity? It naturally happens as we give the Holy Spirit full access to every part of our lives. If the soul were a house, this would mean allowing Him into every room. It’s possible to happily give Jesus access to some rooms but put little Do Not Enter signs on others. Do we ask Him to supervise our finances, political views, family room, or where we do our devotions? We must remind ourselves Jesus’ original audience identified themselves as God’s people, yet Jesus described them as “… so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and wickedness!” Luke 11:39 (NLT2) Groups of Christians can do this too, posting “Keep Out” signs to block Jesus from entering culturally cherished beliefs, practices, and goals.
While I am certain I have blind areas in my life, I try repeatedly to scrutinize my life to see if I am tolerating a wrong attitude, contempt, deception, unhealthy manipulation, unforgiveness, covetousness of any sort to embed itself in my thinking or motivations. Believe me, it keeps me humble, and I am not so foolish as to think I don’t have blind spots that I inadvertently overlook. Yet it is my desire to work with the Spirit to root out my flaws. I must depend on the Sanctifier to purify me. The most recent area He and I have been working on is trusting in myself rather than fully trusting in God. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5 (NLT2) I have been astonished at how often I default to leaning on my own understanding instead of His guidance and oversight.
On the night of his betrayal, Jesus held up his cup and said, “Drink ye all of it…” That word “all” can be translated as whole. I don’t know if by “all” Jesus meant “all of you drink” or “drink it all.” But I do know he drank his cup to the last drop. He is our model of integrity.
If I ever hope to be like Jesus, I must take the entire cup He offers, whether it is bitter (like Connie’s death) or sweet. I want to freely trust Him in every nook and cranny of my personal and public way of thinking. I have recently learned from experience the incredible peace of God that resulted when I cast all my cares upon Him. His way is always better than mine in every dimension of my life. His way is wholeness, not fragmentation.
If you are not experiencing all the peace of God in your life, I highly recommend that you invite Him into every area of your life, so your integrity is in more areas than truth telling.
Great thoughts Bob! Your writing makes me think of the numerous folks I know well (totally un-churched in New England) who have integrity that shines brightly in their lives. Are we born with integrity and later in life learn to compromise it away?
It makes me reflect back to another blog entry you wrote “Grateful or Entitlement”. I have heard the word Entitlement used by religious leaders as a weapon to whittle away at a person’s character, implying they’re NOT people of integrity. Is integrity akin to the fruit of the Spirit which Galatians calls self-control? Could it be that the gift of the Spirit, “gifts of healing”, play a role here to restore, encourage, and heal brokenness in those who have diminishing integrity? Fun to think out-loud with you!
I agree! All of our being must come under Jesus authority. (Hard as that may be for a mortal man). I have to continually asses all of my thoughts and actions; in complete surrender and even then I may fail.