Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it. James 4:17, NLT.
Question: Would you hire a contractor to build a house for you who comes up with the cheapest bid, though you have read about him being sued for cheating on materials he has used for others, substituting inferior products for the more expensive ones called for in the specifications?
Would you allow a doctor to operate on you who cheated his way through med school? Or how would you feel about flying on an airplane if you knew the safety inspector had been given a bribe to sign off on safety regulations, certifying that the plane was safe to fly when, in fact, he knew there were major mechanical problems that could bring down that plane?
Foolish questions? Not really. C. S. Lewis once said that you have to know what a straight line is before you know what a crooked one is. Contractors who cheat, doctors who are incompetent, and safety inspectors who take bribes lack something that for centuries has been called integrity. No matter how modern theorists camouflage and whitewash the issues, you get very uncomfortable quickly when you think you might become the victim of someone’s lack of integrity.
P.B. Fitzwater defined integrity as “the sum and total of a person’s choices.” Your daily choices and decisions, right or wrong, define your integrity, and integrity is the backbone of your character.
Time allows a few observations and reflections that may help you bring the whole issue into clearer focus in your personal life.
First, I would like to point out that you are not born with integrity or expedience. It is something that you learn. Character is usually formed during the early years of your life as you learn that certain things are right and others are wrong. But when integrity is lacking it can be developed just as any skill or ability is. That’s what conversion is about; an understanding of right and wrong, of that which is moral and immoral, it all contributes to character development.
Observation #2: Your character is the sum total of your choices and decisions in life. Daily choices come with consequences attached to them, and when you come down on one side or the other, the sum of those consequences determines who you are. The aggregate total of what you decide to do—right or wrong—is the material that constitutes your personality and who you are.
Observation #3: Your reputation is what others think you to be, while character is what you really are. Remember that integrity is not measured in percentages as a batting average. Either you have it or you don’t.
Observation #4: Doing right is its own reward. In an airport bookstore I made a purchase with a charge card. The clerk inadvertently put both slips—the customer’s and the merchant’s in the binding of the book; it meant his boss wouldn’t get paid for the book. “Excuse me, I said, “If you don’t have the charge slip, your boss doesn’t get paid for my book.” Did he thank me? No. Instead he looked at me with a kind of “you’re really stupid” look, which, for a moment, made me feel like a sucker. But I’m not. Long ago William Shakespeare said, “To thine own self be true and it shall follow as the day the night, thou can’t not then be false to any man.” Regardless of what others choose to do, integrity is my choice, and I made it a long time ago. It’s part of who I am and part of whom I chose to be.
Finally, God blesses those who choose the somewhat less traveled path of integrity. Read Psalm 1, friend. And eventually, your enemies will recognize the difference.
Resource Reading: Matthew 7:24-29
