“You are looking only on the surface of things.
If anyone is confident that he belongs to Christ, he should consider again
that we belong to Christ just as much as he. For even if I boast somewhat
freely about the authority the Lord gave us for building you up rather than
pulling you down, I will not be ashamed of it. I do not want to seem
to be trying to frighten you with my letters. For some say, ‘His letters
are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking
amounts to nothing.’ Such people should realize that what we are in
our letters when we are absent, we will be in our actions when we are present.”
(2 Cor 10:7-11)
(2 Cor 10:7-11)
What is integrity? When do you know it when you see it? How is it showing up in your life? What person demonstrates integrity in a way you’d like to emulate? Do you know people who are lacking in integrity, who aren’t straight up, not who they appear to be?
I had a discouraging conversation with a rancher recently. I was asking permission to hunt antelope, but also probing for opportunity to share my faith. Once he discovered that I was a pastor, he started talking about his neighbor who claimed to be a Christian. He spoke about how that person down the road was not honest, how he would take advantage of you on a horse deal, and how he wasn’t a man of his word. It was disheartening to hear him talk about a neighbor who lacked the reputation of being an honest person but claimed the name of Christ. I have no idea how true the perception was, maybe this rancher was only seeing on the surface of things and what he saw was not reality, but I came away with a deeper appreciation for the critical value of being a person of integrity.
I like what Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians, “What we are in our letters when we are absent, we will be in our actions when we are present.” (2 Cor. 7:11). That sounds like a good definition of integrity to me, our words matching our actions and our actions in the privacy of absence matching up with our behavior in the presence of people down the road.
A lady in our church, trying to get her house ready for a sale, repainted her kitchen recently. The next day she noticed a bubble, and upon investigation she discovered that the paint pealed off in strips with little effort. She brought us a strip of paint to share the frustrating story with us.
A professional painter told her that it was all the result of layers of paint being put on bare wood without primer. Somebody in the past had not laid a good foundation. It took a lot of time and work to strip the paint away to get down to where there could be a good base put on. The painted wall ended up stripped away and ugly because there was no primer.
Once primed, the rest of the paint stuck and became an effective, colorful coat with integrity of substance.
Perhaps we could consider God’s Word as our primer. Without Christ and His Word, anything we paint on the portrait of our life will be stripped and pealed away to reveal bare and rotting wood. But with a good base, honesty at the core, Christ the way and the truth and the life as the primer of our lives, we can be people of integrity. We can be known as colorful people who stick to our word because there is integrity beneath the surface.
“In everything set them an example by doing
what is good. In your teaching show integrity , seriousness and soundness
of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed
because they have nothing bad to say about us.”
(Titus 2:7-8)
(Titus 2:7-8)
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