Living with Integrity

What would tempt you to try deceptive behaviour?
    • Would you attempt to deceive others to get out of trouble?
    • Would you act deceptively to win friends and gain influence?
    • Would you decide to deceive because of fear?
    • Would you engage in deception to make someone else look bad?
    • Would you use deception simply to impress others?
    • Would you deceive others to gain personal advantage?
    • Would you employ deceptive tactics to get your own way?
Anything here that makes you think, “I can relate to that?”

Let's assume you've seen yourself somewhere in this list and you wonder what would lie in store for you if you decided to start being authentic - open, honest, vulnerable and all of those things?  I could be cynical and tell you that you'd probably lose a lot of friends, you might be demoted at work, your family could reject you, and so on.  I mention this because for some people becoming real after years of deception does have some superficial negative ramifications.

What I do want to do, however, is to focus on the benefits, the blessing of living with integrity.  There are a number of them, but we’ll just consider a few principal ones here.

Being authentic and honest gives us a motivation for dealing with what's wrong in our lives.  This is definitely one of the most important benefits.  If you deny such things as addiction, abusive behaviour, laziness, anger, bitterness, or any other weakness or sin, you'll never deal with it.  After all, if you've convinced yourself you don't have a problem, why would you go looking for help to get rid of it?  Yet this awareness and acknowledgment of one’s true character is essential.  It allows us to see ourselves without all the defenses, the distortions, the illusions.  We come to know ourselves as we truly are and not as we pretend to ourselves and to others.  We are able to detect our true motives and their frequently selfish basis.  Being honest about what's wrong in our lives is the first step in making things right.  For some, this may not seem like a big deal - for others it is an immense hurdle.  If you have gone on for years saying that you don't have a problem, to suddenly confess it can be extremely difficult.

Then, living with integrity gives us a stable foundation for relationships.  There is no doubt that if you've entered into a marriage, or business arrangement, or been accepted in a school, church or other institution under false pretenses, that being honest will have significant impact.  But, I would hasten to add,  not nearly as bad as living a lie.  Today, I am appealing to those who are contemplating a big step in life like getting married, or starting a career or some such thing.  It is of the utmost importance that you be real.  A few days, weeks, months, or even years down the road, when the truth comes out (and it will) the damage to the relationship caused by the deception will have a much more profound impact that if you come clean now.  Lies and deceit and role playing will never provide a lasting foundation for important relationships.

Being honest also helps us protect ourselves from self-deceit.  We've thought about the dangers of deceiving others, but we can also deceive ourselves.  Being real, honest, truthful about our weaknesses, inabilities and sins, helps to keep us from self-deceit.  Self-deceit usually turns immediately into self-conceit as we think of ourselves as much better than we really are, because we've never confronted our own dark side.  However, it's also true that some folk have the opposite problem.  They are self-deceived about their strengths and abilities.  This keeps them from contributing all they can to their families, schools, churches, workplaces.  They may seem like nice humble folk, but in fact they are self-deceived.  It is only as we are real with ourselves that we can overcome this problem.

Then, too, being authentic gives us resources for truly helping others.  If you've been through a difficult trial, or perhaps are even in the middle of one, you are uniquely equipped to help others who are struggling with the same issue.  If you deny it, you will cut off the supply of help to others.  I hesitate to mention this, but Christians sometimes have a skewed understanding of this.  We may live with the false assumption that Christians, especially really good ones, won't have the same troubles everyone else has - poor health, sour relationships, rebellious kids, abusive parents, unemployment, depression and so on.  Then, when these troubles come our way, we do our best to deny them, or at least hide them, so that we will look like what we think good Christians should look like.  However, that being real about your struggles releases all kinds of potential blessings in the lives of fellow-strugglers.  And we who struggle really need you who have been through it to point the way and give us hope.

Finally, for today, living with integrity opens the door to on-going fellowship with God.  I think everyone who has even a casual understanding and acceptance of God, senses that when they act in a way which violates God's law, it puts a barrier between them and God.  Deceiving will get in the way of your relationship with God every time.  Of course he sees all and knows the truth, so you're not, in fact, deceiving him at all.  However, the intent on your part to deny your sin and represent yourself as righteous blocks your fellowship with God.

They may have had a relationship with God for many years, but because of sin and rebellion and being inauthentic, the condition of that relationship has been strained or broken.  Sin not only keeps us from initially beginning a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, it can also keep us from having fellowship with our heavenly father.  Being honest with God is of the utmost importance if you hope to have fellowship with God.

Now, it may be that you have no basis for fellowship with God because you have no relationship with Him.  If that is the case, then you need to put that right, today.  So let me tell you that God has taken the first step in making a way for you to have a relationship with him, by accepting the death of his Son the Lord Jesus Christ as the payment for your sin.  The fact is we are all sinners.  We all carry around this burden of judicial guilt which weighs us down, oppresses us and makes us feel so terrible.  So what can we do about this?  It is one of the simplest, yet hardest things we will ever do.

We have to humble ourselves and admit that we can do nothing to make ourselves righteous.  We prove that every day when we pretend to be better than we really are.  After all, if we truly were righteous people we would have spend all that energy pretending!  Then, once we have confessed that there is nothing we can do, we simply trust in the fact that Jesus did it all.  He has done everything that was necessary to remove the load of sin that we carry by dying on the cross in our place.  Finally, with nothing to hide, we can live authentically - real with God - real with ourselves - real with each other.