Living the Lifestyle of Integrity and Ethics 
By Dr. Frederick K.C. Price

Many Christians relate integrity and ethics only to those in leadership. In other words, leaders, including pastors, are supposed to be people of integrity and ethics, but these characteristics are not as important for others. Actually, every born-again Believer should be a person of integrity and ethics.

Unfortunately, these traits seem rare commodities in most people, especially those in leadership. I'm neither defending nor attacking leaders, but since I am in a leadership position and interface with other leaders, that is simply what I know. You can only communicate what you are and what you have. And I think that as the leader goes, so go the followers.

The concept of integrity has been given little attention by philosophers but has been a central concern in most religions. Integrity, after all, is a sort of wholeness, and most religions teach that God calls us to live an undivided life in accordance with divine principle. For instance, in Islam, the sharia, the divine path that God directs people to walk in, guides all legal and moral statutes. In Judaism, the study of the Torah and the Talmud reveal the rules under which God's people are expected to live.

We, as Christians, are called in Matthew 5:8 to be pure in heart, which implies an undivided focus in following God's rule. It calls for no compromise, deviation or avoidance of the price tag that may have to be paid to stand for what we know to be right. We are also told in Proverbs 11:3:

The integrity of the upright will guide them, but the perversity of the unfaithful will destroy them.

In other words, according to this verse, integrity guides us to the truth. Integrity is not, in and of itself, the truth. It is a guide for acting on the truth, and it forces you to question and analyze your situation. Integrity is the process of discerning right from wrong, and then doing what you know to be right.

Say you give the cashier at the supermarket $10 to pay for $8.50 worth of groceries, but the cashier hands you back $11.50 in change. It is your integrity that recognizes that you have been given too much change and compels you to give back the extra $10.

Integrity guides you to know the truth by persuading you to act on what is right. Without this quality, you will go whichever way the wind is blowing, despite what you may know to be true.

Let me give you two words -- consistency and predictability. Consistency means "the same yesterday, today and forever," and predictability means knowing what will happen. This is why we can base our lives on God's Word, because God is consistent and predictable. In other words, we can count on God. You cannot have integrity without consistency and predictability.

Here is a classic illustration that serves to prove my point: The FaithDome, where most of you view me teaching on Sundays, could be filled to overflowing every Sunday if every person who claimed to be a member of Crenshaw Christian Center showed up consistently and predictably. This has not happened. We have the seats; we have the space - but where is the commitment of the members?

Most of these members would never consider robbing a liquor store or a supermarket, but they rob other members of their weekly fellowship and they rob God constantly by not bringing their tithes to church every Sunday. I am not talking about people who have to work on Sundays and have no real control over their assignments. The average job is Monday through Friday, and the person’s responsibility for being at work generally stops at the end of the shift on Friday.

Attending church on Sundays generally involves four days a month, for just a couple of hours each time. Add to that a Bible study, and the commitment becomes eight days - eight days out of 30 days! But you cannot get Christians who say they love God and know Christ to be consistent and predictable for those few days each month.

The only time I as pastor am not at Crenshaw Christian Center on Sundays is if I am out of the country. I have never missed a Sunday because of an ailment or illness in over 27 years, with the exception of one service due to a surgical procedure. I have taught on Sundays when I was in such blinding pain that every word out of my mouth was like a dagger sticking in me, but that is my job. It is only once a week, and if I cannot trust God to see me through, how can I trust Him to do anything else He promises in His Word?

If God were as inconsistent and unpredictable as most Christians, we would be up the creek in a boat with no oars. We expect our employers to be consistent and predictable in paying us every payday, and we would think them very unreliable if they did not pay us consistently. Actually, for us as Christians, God is our source; our employers are simply one of the channels through which God blesses us. So why can’t we be consistent with the things of the One who is taking care of us?

Jesus said in Luke 16:10-12:

“He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much.

“Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?

“And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own?”

This principle is so true. If you are a person of integrity, whatever else may be going on around you is irrelevant and immaterial, and it is below your personal dignity not to follow through on your word. Why should God make a commitment to you when He cannot trust you? We are our promises, our words, and we lose hold of ourselves when we do not make an effort to keep our promises.

According to Webster’s Dictionary, integrity means the quality or state of being of sound moral principle; uprightness; honesty and sincerity. It is a quality or state of being - something you do on a consistent basis, just as the proverb says.

What does it take to be a person of integrity? The word moral found in our definition of integrity simply means good or right in conduct or character; principles; standards or habits with respect to right or wrong in conduct and ethics. This definition brings me to two words that I believe bear explanation - character and ethics.

Character refers to moral strength, self-discipline, fortitude, or a good reputation; it is what allows you to act on what your integrity guides you to believe is right. Ethics is a moral standard or set of values that are a foundation for your actions. It is because of your ethics that you do what you do and why you do not do some things that you could do.

Having ethics does not guarantee that you will do what is right or stay out of trouble. If your ethics are warped, then your value judgment will be warped because you can only make value judgments based on what is in you. If you do not have a sound moral or ethics standard, you are likely to do just about anything. That is why it is not until you combine morals and character with your ethics that you become a person of integrity - a person whose faculties guide him or her to do what is right.

A person with these qualities is willing to bear the consequences of his or her convictions, even when those consequences are difficult or unpleasant. If we are never challenged, we can never really know how deeply we believe. And where there is no possibility of its loss, integrity cannot exist. We can never know whether we are acting from deep and steadfast principles until those principles are put to the test.

There are three steps or components involved in acting on a personal sense of integrity:

1.	Discerning what is right and wrong. There has to be a right and a wrong. If there is a right, there has to be a corresponding wrong; and if there is a wrong, there has to be a corresponding right. One of the components of integrity is to discern and know what is right and what is wrong. It's a simple and obvious point, but many miss it.
2.	Acting on what you have discerned, even at personal cost. Sometimes people discern right from wrong, but they will not act on that knowledge because the price tag is too high. So they take the path that costs them less and do not realize that they're actually selling themselves short.
3.	Saying openly that you are acting on what you understand to be right and wrong. In other words, you make a public declaration and say, "I'm acting on this because I understand that this is right and this is wrong." There is no "gray area"; there is no ambiguity. Everyone will know that you are acting on what you have come to understand as right.

We have a perfect example of these steps in the third chapter of Daniel. King Nebuchadnezzar had a giant golden idol erected on the plains of Dura, then he made an order that everyone was to bow before it. The three Hebrew boys, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, refused. They told the king, in verses 16-18:

… "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.

"If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king.

"But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up."

Everyone else was falling down to worship the image, probably figuring, "No big thing. Nobody will even pay attention. After all, the majority is always right." But those three boys had another code of ethics by which they operated. They discerned what was right and wrong and the choice they had to make - either serve, worship and acknowledge a false god or serve the true and living God. They then acted on what they had discerned, even at cost of their lives.

We know the story from here. The king was furious and had the boys thrown into the fiery furnace, but God delivered them. But notice: They had to act before they received deliverance.

A similar thing happened in the sixth chapter of Daniel, when Daniel was thrown into the lions’ den. He discerned right from wrong - continued to worship the true God rather than obey the edict of the king - then made his choice and God delivered him. And in the Book of Genesis, when Joseph acted with integrity, God eventually promoted him from prison to the right hand of Pharaoh to serve as his regent.

The Lord is no respecter of persons. He does not change His mind, nor go back on His Word. Therefore, He has obligated Himself to do for you what he did for Joseph, the three Hebrew boys and Daniel. Joseph says in Genesis 50:20 that “… You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good.” This principle, and the blessed assurance it gives for anything that happens in your life, is yours as you remain committed to a lifestyle of integrity out of service to Him.

This teaching by Dr. Price was excerpted from his book entitled, “Integrity: The Guarantee for Success.”