In the midst of an election year and all it's associated political rhetoric, we see and hear candidates make all kinds of promises. The candidates "put on a face" they want voters to see. As a matter of fact, this "putting on a face or a mask" concept comes from the Greek word for actor- hypocrite. The media has gotten into the habit of checking into some of the claims of these candidates, to find out if they are true. Sometimes political pretenses and claims turn out to be true, but sadly many are false. What we have then is a lack of integrity. Integrity is defined in the dictionary as the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles, and also the state of being whole and undivided.
Don't worry, I'm not going to blog about politics, for there is a more important Christian life lesson in this political analogy, which concerns integrity and integration. One of the harshest criticisms that I usually hear concerning the Christian faith, is that there are too many hypocrites who profess to be Christians. Sometimes these claims are perceived falsehoods, but most of us have known folks in church who are pious on Sunday and then (shall we say) less than pious Monday through Saturday. There does appear to be a problem with integrity in this case, because the fabric of integrity lies in it's consistency.
In a recent book, I read about the attributes of the devout Jewish lifestyle in the early first century. Their faith was fully integrated into their lives. They lived day to day with their Lord God in mind, not just on the Sabbath. They weren't perfect, but they exhibited a lot more integrity in their daily life activities than what we see in many Christian cultures today.
One key to this consistent, non-hypocritical living was (and is) something called integration. Practically speaking, by integrating God's Word into our daily living, and praying frequently we begin to move away from hypocrisy and toward a consistent integral walk with God. So far so good. However, there is more to it than that.
I want to interject a personal life lesson here, regarding developing a more integrated Christian life style. I used to be inconsistent with my Bible reading and prayer. Once I got that under control, there was one more step I needed to do. This one is not very popular. When Jesus instructed his disciples to pick up their cross and follow him, each person had to make a decision. That's because picking up your cross means, among other things, giving up stuff that would impede your relationship to the Lord. OK, so I began to realize that I could not chase after some things that I used to, and expect to grow closer to God. The easiest way to get started in this was to change what I listened to, what I watched, what I read, and how I spoke. But, changing those things still wasn't the key. The key to changing behavior is a term called displacement. If you pour water into a glass it displaces the air. Likewise, I found the more I consistently poured spiritual stuff into my heart, the less desire I had for anything but Him, His Word, and even people. Doing these things went a long way toward purging my hypocrisy and inconsistent lifestyle.
I'll end today's blog with the words found in James 1:8 in which we read about being double-minded: "A double minded man is unstable in all his ways". There are many, many benefits to the integrated Christian lifestyle. It reduces anxiety, decreases hypocrisy, increases integrity, increases faith, and purges the nature of being double-minded.
Wow, who doesn't want or need these things? :-)
Have a blessed day,
George
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