As a professor, one of my goals is to teach my students to do their work and manage others with integrity. While most of them readily know what integrity is, it can be a difficult concept to define. One of the ways I help them understand it is by looking at Ephesians 4:1 which states, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,” In other words, if we say we follow Christ, then our lives should showcase how God has called us to live. We can’t say with integrity that we are a Christian, and yet live in such a way that is contrary to His teaching. This is true in each aspect of our lives; we must follow His way of doing things in our homes, our work, our church, and our communities.
To help us further understand what a life that is worthy of being identified with Christ looks like, Paul provides a description of the types of attitudes and actions that should characterize our lives. We should conduct ourselves “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph 4:2).While it is easy to see from the last two phrases (“bearing with one another in love” and “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit”) that Paul was focused on how the Ephesian Christians interacted with one another, these descriptors can be applied to our lives outside of our church family as well. Christians should prefer others over themselves, thus demonstrating humility and not pride. They should deal gently with difficult people and have patience with challenging situations, recognizing that God has dealt bountifully with them and therefore, they can be conduits of that grace towards others. Lastly, they should be people who work towards peace and who strive together with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to be His hands and feet to a lost world. Living a life worthy of the title “Christian” will display the attitudes and actions that echo the life of our Savior.
However, doing this well means that we are committed to living lives in this manner regardless of whether it is convenient for us. As I remind my students, the very first part of this verse tells us that Paul wrote those words while he was imprisoned. And this wasn’t figurative language. Paul was unjustly locked up and had his freedom restricted. Yet, despite this, he was committed to living in a way that honored God. Even though he had plenty of reasons to think his conduct was inconsequential while he resided behind prison walls, he recognized that because he claimed the name of Christ, he had a duty and an opportunity to display Christ-like character even when the impact of doing so may have seemed insignificant. He was committed to living consistently with God’s standards regardless of how easy or how difficult it was. This is what a Christian living a life of integrity will do.
It’s one thing to display humility, patience, and love when things are going well for us. It is a completely different challenge to do that when deadlines are pressing in, people are frustrating you, or when you are wrongly locked up as Paul was. But Christians should not be committed to following the ways of God only when it is easy. If we desire to be men and women of integrity, if we desire to be men and women who represent the name of Christ well, we will display the characteristics of our Savior when it is easy to do so and when it is hard, when it is convenient to do so and when it costs us. We will live in a way worthy of the name of Christ in whatever situation He sovereignly places us in.
