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Thursday, October 30, 2008

Integrity...

What does it mean to have integrity? Well, are you the same person when you are at church? ...at school? ... alone at home? ...in another country? ...when you are around your friends? ...when you are around your family? ...when you are having a bad day? ...when you are having a good day? ...when God seems far away? ... when God feels close?

A man or woman of integrity will be the same everywhere, with friends and family, at school and at church, with people or when alone. The rules never change, so why should our actions change? Could you do what you are doing with your friends with the same confidence on a Sunday morning? Would it be OK if Jesus suddenly walked into your room when you were watching TV? Would you mind if you met one of your Christian friends in the movie section at Blockbuster?

But it's not enough to say that we are the same everywhere when our "same" does not reflect the image of Christ. Our "same" has to be pure, faultless, blameless, white as snow. That is Christian integrity... being the same person (who is striving towards righteousness) all the time, no matter who is with us, where we are, who we assume is watching.

Imagine a group of athletes. They meet at the track every day and begin warming up by stretching. After warming up their bodies they take to the track, but "no one" is watching them practice so they don't need to go for the gold because they are only playing around. Then imagine the horror they would feel if an Olympic scout appeared from "nowhere" and began choosing the ones he thought were worthy of competing.

Run the race well because God is watching. He is the Scout, watching and waiting, wanting you to do your best. He is watching, and we have no room for slack when it comes to our race. We have to produce gold metal quality runs all though out the day, no matter how tired, no matter how many hurdles obstruct our path, no matter who is telling us we cannot win, no matter what our attitudes we choose to have that day are. God demands perfection, and we cannot blame anyone but ourselves when our times don't measure up.

5 comments:

Richard Lawry said...

Integrity is so hard to find. The church should be full of people of integrity, but... sigh :(

I like your idea that a person of integrity does not change depending on the day of the week, It is a seven day a week commitment.

An Arkie's Musings

mommy g said...

Allie Pie is back! Way to go, girl. I can just see the wheels turning in your head as God fills you as you asked...

Anonymous said...

Great blog it hit very close to home Integrity is taking responsibility for your actions and dealing with them in a honorable way and one that pleases God It is not something you have it is something you have to chose to do everyday every minute of your life it doesn't just happen. Great job

Anonymous said...

good luck with that

Anonymous said...

What happened to this girl? Where did she go? I used to love reading this post, and I loved the teamwork between the 2 authors....sigh.