“Let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ be ‘No.’” (Matthew 5:37) Moral soundness and uprightness are required for normal development.
What does integrity mean?
“Integrity is the practice of being honest and showing a consistent and uncompromising adherence to strong moral and ethical principles and values. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions.
Integrity can stand in opposition to hypocrisy, in that judging with the standards of integrity involves regarding internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding within themselves conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs.
The word integrity evolved from the Latin adjective integer, meaning whole or complete. In this context, integrity is the inner sense of “wholeness” deriving from qualities such as honesty and consistency of character. As such, one may judge that others “have integrity” to the extent that they act according to the values, beliefs and principles they claim to hold.” – Wikipedia
How does one achieve Biblical integrity?
The circles of life are very intrinsic and to achieve balance is an art only God can achieve. To be “whole or complete” therefore can only really come when we are rooted completely in Jesus. This means that our focus is on the things of heaven and not on the earth as eternity is our goal.
To achieve this heavenly goal on earth we have to decide if we will compromise our walk with God and keep to worldly standards or if will we stand firm on God’s standards alone!
“Great and glorious God, and Thou Lord Jesus, I pray you shed abroad your light in the darkness of my mind. Be found of me, Lord, so that in all things I may act only in accordance with Thy holy will.”
— Francis of Assisi
In essence, we must strive to come to God as we were in our pre-fall state, the way God had intended us to be.
The Bible project describes our fall from grace that has led to the pollution of every human character attribute, beautifully in the following clip:
The Christian challenge to us
When one looks at the puzzle pieces of what is your life and you are truly trying to walk in integrity then it becomes clear that this is where the devil will focus his attempts to bring you to a fall, for him a wounded Christian is better than one that stands firm.
When we compromise we give the devil more ammunition to keep us from reaching God’s potential. This is not the will of God. If we fall we must repent and come back to be fully under God’s guidance.
King David is a good example of this. There is not a sin under the sun he did not commit: “because David did that which was right in Yahweh’s eyes, and didn’t turn away from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, except only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.” (1 Kings 15:5)
As we pray that God bless us with more love… patience…integrity, we should bear in mind that we will probably be tested to see if we have achieved this character trait. Testing will come. This is an ongoing process to bring growth and sanctification.
Garry Kieswetter in his sermon “Staan sterk in moeilike tye” said… “Who started it? GOD DID!” This can be seen in the life of Job: Yahweh said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? For there is no one like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God and turns away from evil. He still maintains his integrity, although you incited me against him, to ruin him without cause.” (Job 2:3)
Challenge
May we be considered worthy by God to be presented for testing, and may we stand firm and blameless and shun the evil that comes our way.
Conclusion
Casting Crowns has this song, “Slow Fade”, that fits into this concept so perfectly. It reminds me of the story of how one cooks a frog… You put him in a pot that you start boiling … slowly… decay never comes quickly. It is also true that the same boiling water that makes an egg hard makes a potato soft.
We must therefore be vigilant for the different arrows the devil makes use of to achieve his goals. And if we fall, may we be a “man after God’s heart” like David and come to repentance quickly and truthfully!
“Sometimes honesty can be messy”
– The Shack
