discipled living

A key concern of Discipleship and the Discipline we follow is achieving and maintaining integrity in our life and practice as followers of Jesus Christ.  Spiritual Integrity demands that we be what we say we profess to be. The relationship between what we claim about ourselves as followers of Jesus Christ must approximate our practice as believers or we become living lies, deceptions masquerading as true followers.  God relates this truth in Proverbs 11:3 “The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity” (NIV)

Jesus Instructs in Matthew 5:33-37 in this way,

“Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

Spiritual Integrity is a Discipline that produces a result in the disciple, but also offers benefits to the unbeliever.  Your exercise of spiritual integrity produces an inner strength that empowers the believer to stand against accusation and assault; confident in the knowledge that they are who they profess to be.  There is a ministry to the world in integrity among believers.  When believers behave in a manner that is consistent with their testimony about themselves, the Witness to Christ is strengthened in the world. 

As a spiritual discipline, Spiritual Integrity is a make or break proposition.  We are called to live before men that they may see our good works and glorify God in heaven. 

We do this by living as representatives of Christ. Our integrity is the only means by which we can demonstrate our kinship with Christ.  We are told, “And whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”  (Colossians 3:20 NIV.)  We are Christ’s representatives and the world will credit or discredit the Cause of Christ by virtue of the works that we do as His disciples.  We can claim that our failures do not impact the work of Christ but we can bring reproach against the “name of Christ” and thereby diminish the witness of the Saving Work of Christ in the lives of those we say we were saved and called to serve.

Should we fail the Spiritual Integrity test before the world, we in fact expose the Cross of Christ to public ridicule. The public spectacle disciples make of the Cross is a reverse of the Word of God which says,

“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

We make the Word of God and the Work of Christ a public spectacle by living as though it has no authority over our lives.  What Paul is teaching us is that our “worth” will be measured by how we live out our lives as disciples.  This is not to say that God values any one more highly than another, for the scripture teaches that the Father is no respecter of persons (Romans 2:11).  God loves His children equally, and showed His Love, by the sacrifice He made on our behalf.

Paul is giving voice and expression to an old saying that “Our word is our worth and our worth is our word.”  In the Hebrew mind, there was no distinction between word and deed; therefore to make a statement of commitment was as much the act, as the act itself