CHRISTIAN INTEGRITY is of massive importance in the life of the disciple of Christ, whose moral compass should always be steadfastly trained to ‘True North’. By “integrity” I mean uprightness, honesty, purity, wholeness, uncorruptedness and incorruptibility. These are (or should be) qualities which come naturally to the genuinely “born from above”, ‘metanoified’ (or ‘metanoiaed’) follower in the footsteps of Christ. [NB: metanoia is the Greek word often translated as “repentance”, though it goes so much deeper than that, signifying not merely saying sorry or being sorry but also being willing, ready and able to turn around one’s life through a 180° transformation with the help of the Spirit of God].

The word “integrity” implies a unification of characteristics and qualities in a person — that “wholeness” referred to above. This means that there is no discrepancy between the public persona and the private. Disciples of Christ do not look ‘squeaky-clean’ on the outside (e.g., in front of people, in a church service or other public place) yet get up to all sorts of base behaviours in private. Acting with integrity means that there can never be any hidden motives or agendas. It means being a man or woman of one’s word. It means having a truckload of moral courage and always being prepared to be accountable (to God and to those one may have deliberately or inadvertently wronged) in the event of mistakes or other faux-pas.

All the above may sound ‘hifalutin’ but this is what is expected of us and to what we aspire and for which we do all that we can to “put to death” any stray remnants of the old self (Colossians 3:5; Romans 8:13; Ephesians 4:22-24; Galatians 5:24) — what I call “doing the work”, the exclusive Christian work of progressive sanctification.

There are unbelievers who can act with integrity on certain moral/ethical issues, and I am grateful for that. But that is not the same as Christian integrity. A primary difference is that disciples of Christ act with integrity out of allegiance to Christ and not just for ourselves, or merely for the sake of altruism, or for some political or social reason. Christian integrity involves the ability to never compromise on biblical or other truth, yet without any belligerence (though one might need to be vigorously dynamic and compelling). It is the willingness to be orthodox without being legalistic. For orthodoxy can tend towards a hard heart of clay if agapé is absent (which it should never be but for some strange reason in some people it just seems to go “poof” and disappears in a hail of ‘bullets’ 🤔🤷‍♂️). So with the refusal to compromise and the desire to stand for truth without wavering comes the need for a generous sprinkling of grace.

The great art for the disciple of Christ is to be faithful to the truth without losing sight of the need for compassion and even empathy. So it therefore involves how to be unequivocally uncompromising, unswervingly truthtelling, yet heartmeltingly loving (which has nothing to do with schmaltz or sentimentality!). That is Christian integrity.

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© Copyright, Alan Morrison, 2026
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]

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