Integrity #1 — Satisfying Integrity

Being “double-minded” makes us unstable in all our ways. Whether the divide is spiritual, ethical, moral, intellectual, or emotional, always having our hearts at a fork in the road causes much unhappiness and often leads to regret. The single-minded person — the person of integrity — however, experiences no such inner turmoil. Rather, integrity creates a sense of wholeness and peace. Integrity is difficult to maintain in a disintegrating culture. Considering the following promises over the next few weeks will help us fine tune our faith for those times when we need to defeat our unbelieving inclinations to serve more than one master.

You can not serve two masters; for either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will hold to one and despise the other. You can either serve God the Creator or the creation. … So seek first his kingdom and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you. Matthew 6:24, 33

A wise man once said, “What we hope in, we worship; what we worship, we serve.” So there is a sense in which everyone lives with integrity. At any one time we can only have one source of hope. Our eggs are always in one basket or another, even if we change baskets frequently. Jesus simply says that if we hook up with God, we will be far more satisfied in life than if we serve some created entity. For serving “the creation” (anything in the universe other than the Creator) means we must secure and protect and nurture and manipulate it, while serving God means placing ourselves in a position for him to work for us: “There is no other god like ours, who works for those who wait for him.” The choice is simple: the created or the Creator. Such is Jesus’ promise: If we seek to live under God’s rule and by God’s rules, we will receive God’s rewards. This is integrity worth maintaining, worth fighting for.

“Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress; so my eyes look to you O Eternal, my God, until you are gracious to me.” Amen.