A Bit More on Integrity

Yesterday I shared some thoughts on integrity.  Have you ever noticed that when you start thinking about something you begin to see it everywhere?  Like when you are looking for a new car, you begin to see the model you want every time you get on the road.  Well I ran into the concept of integrity again today.

Look at Psalm 41:12 and Psalm 25:21.  The three clauses that got my attention were:

• …You uphold me in my integrity
• …You set me in your presence forever
• …integrity and uprightness preserve me for I wait for You…

These passages reinforce the conclusion yesterday.  My integrity is not something I can gin up on my own.  Integrity in the life of a believer is dependent on one’s relationship, call it intimacy with the Lord.  In 2 Peter 2:2 – 4, Peter tells us that one of the reasons that we are given the Word of God, is so that we can become partakers of the divine nature.  In the passages above David says that he has been set in the Lord’s presence and he waits for the Lord.

The conclusion I come to is that my integrity is directly proportional to my waiting on the Lord in His presence.  The advantage I have over David in this, that we all have, is that we have all 66 books.  We have a fuller description of the nature and character of God from which to draw.  We also have the heart of David stripped bare for us in his journal, the Psalms.

It occurs to me that we should be fairly strong in integrity.  Should we not?