We Need Integrity, Not Duplicity
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.’ (Proverbs 11:3)
The turmoil we have in our nation, and indeed our world as a whole, comes from a lack of integrity. Integrity is defined as, in the American Heritage Dictionary, a ‘steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code.’ For example, we have talked before about abortion not being a legal issue, despite the removal of Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs decision. Though abortion is now based on individual states in what is allowed, the fact is the law doesn’t matter; integrity should dictate it is wrong for any woman to have an abortion, period. Abortion is a moral issue, not a legal one.
In the chaos of our present day, in terms of leadership (or lack thereof) of our nation, there is duplicity, or a deliberate deceiving of the American people, and in the secular society a deliberate intent to promote unrighteous acts and behaviors instead of moral and ethical acts and behaviors. This deception may be thought by those who promote them as being beneficial. Hiding a bad or unpopular truth, like a problem with the health of the President, may be seen as proper to lower anxiety among the people. It is usually not good for a leader to be seen as weak or feckless. But in being deceptive, this typically will make the situation worse as time goes on and the suspicions of something possibly is wrong, and ‘conspiracy theories’ begin to pop up.
Conspiracy theories, when found to be right when the Truth is discovered, create distrust. The more acts of duplicity are enacted among the people the more distrust builds, which eventually fails both the leadership or government and its people. In society, this deception that is amoral and unrighteous causes fractures and failings in societal order.
Solomon, in writing Proverbs, understood (though later in his life fell short) why leadership and society in general needs integrity. We need to trust our leaders, especially in a Republic such as ours, in the decisions they need to make and in the abilities they have in making them. There is a need to live in a society that is moral and Righteous, where we can trust that the food we buy is safe to eat, that the items we buy are proper in their weight and content, and that the equipment and appliances we buy will work properly for a given time. If we do not have integrity we have chaos and turmoil. There is a need for us today to return to Righteousness and Godly morality to remove the chaos.
Our True leader is Jesus, and Him being not only Righteous but Holy, the living and eternal definition of Integrity, without sin or blemish. If we are truly going to get away from the subterfuge of hiding behind duplicity in our nation and our world, we need the love and leadership of Jesus to bring us His morals and ethics of the Word onto us to live by. We as Christians need to step up, share the Gospel message, pray and when possible take the lead to bring His morality to the forefront and to show an immoral society a better, Truthful way to live. Instead of the people asking ‘where in the world is…’ it would be far better for people to ask, ‘where in the Word is…’.
