MiM - Lesson 11

Chapter 21
Integrity: What’s the Price?

Integrity can be a hard thing to establish and a remarkably easy thing to lose. In some cases we may never recover with a particular individual if we act unethically. While an individual may need to forgive us it is still our challenge to act ethically and with the highest integrity at all times. In the work place we meet a wide variety of people. Some are easy to figure out. With some people, you know if their mouth is open and sounds are coming out that they are telling lies. Other people you would pretty much trust at all times and there are plenty of people in between.

Proverbs 26:24–26
Whoever hates disguises himself with his lips and harbors deceit in his heart; when he speaks graciously, believe him not, for there are seven abominations in his heart; though his hatred be covered with deception, his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly.

For someone who is completely given over to hate and deceit (seven being the number of completeness) the deception will not last for ever. Their integrity will be lost and sin will be evident.

One of my favorite quotes of all time will probably never show up on anyone else’s list of quotes. It is a quote that Josh Steiner

I made no attempt to be inaccurate, but I want to be clear I was not attempting to be precise. (Treasury Chief of Staff Josh Steiner, accused by Congress of lying when his diary entries did not jibe with what he told them - Clinton Administration about 1994).

I’m afraid that those words were barely out of his mouth before he had no more integrity to lose. We can lie by playing loose with the facts. Mr. Steiner was spinning the truth and then trying to spin the way he was spinning the truth. One thing a bunch of politicians can recognize is a person telling lies.

Recently a magazine for people who work on and run in political races put on a series of seminars and discussions on “All Things Ethical”. They put on the convention in Las Vegas and it included a seminar titled, “The Ethics of Deception: What is the Whole Truth, and When is it Required?”
http://www.examiner.com/a-626675~Yeas___Nays__Monday__Mar__19.html

We live in a world in which integrity is not honored. Fortunately I’ve forgotten the names of the individuals over the last 20 years but an individual in my organization was applying for a leadership position. The person that would have been his new boss asked him if he could lie to the people he was supervising if it was necessary. The implication was that you should say yes or you wouldn’t get the position. We live in a fallen world but we are called to righteousness. We must not tell lies. We must not “bare false witness” and within a relationship within which we represent another’s employer it is especially important that our integrity be above question.

God works to build faithfulness and trustworthiness in us. His Holy Spirit works to bear fruit in us. Integrity is what you do when no one else knows and God is holy and hates sin. We are tempted to “adjust” the truth daily and God hears every word we speak. Can God trust us when we are alone? If someone gives you the incorrect change do you speak up and make it right? Do you cheat a poor person on the tip at a restaurant? You’ll be challenged this week to stretch, compress, or massage the truth. How much is your integrity worth? Maybe it is a new job or maybe it is just a few percent of a lunch tab.

Morley quotes John Ruskin as saying:

The essence of lying is in deception, not in words. A lie may be told by
silence, by equivocation, by the accent on a syllable, by a glance of the eye
attaching a peculiar significance to a sentence. All these kinds of lies are
worse and baser by many degrees than a lie plainly worded. No form of blinded
conscience is so far sunk as that which comforts itself for having deceived
because the deception was by gesture or silence instead of utterance.

If you can reject that truth then you can rationalize attending a seminar with a title like “The Ethics of Deception: What is the Whole Truth, and When is it Required?”

Morley lists 3 reasons that a business deal can go bad. If the deal goes bad because of 1) an error in judgment or 2) a change in the environment then that is unfortunate. If the deal goes bad because of the third reason (Integrity) then you’ll be subject to God’s judgment. Integrity is of paramount importance to God. God is looking for men who will live with, and stand up for, truth. God will continually challenge us to a greater and greater integrity and truthfulness with the light of His Holy Spirit. Think twice before you pray like the psalmist in Psalm 139, “Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” He’ll do it and you’ll get a reality check from God. It is a good and essential path for you to take but it can be a tough path.

I worked with a guy at NCSU who is about 35 years older than I am. He planted the first fescue in North Carolina about 1940. He grew up on a tobacco farm and liked to tell stories about his youth. One of those stories really stuck with me. When the rural electric came into his part of NC, his parents were anxious to get electric power and they were excited. His dad liked new technology and his mom was an excellent housekeeper and proud of their home and so they wired it and put 100 watt bulbs in every room. Well, those houses were not sealed like ours are these days and when the bulbs came on they could see the fly specks and soot from kerosene lamps all over the walls. His mom started crying and his dad took out all those 100 watt bulbs and when back to the hardware store for some 50 watt bulbs. God will not turn up the wattage faster than we can take but we do need to have the light turned up. Pray for God to search your heart and ask for the Grace not to look for a dimmer switch.

Ephesians 4:15-16
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Ephesians 4:17-25
Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

You must speak the truth in love. You are held to a higher standard of behavior than before your salvation. Putting off the old self is an activity that you need to be pursuing actively so that you can put on the new self and be righteous and holy.