By: Lauren Thomas
The message went something like this, “thank you for reflecting Jesus to me in your patience.” It was from a former piano student who had found me on social media. Shame washed over me. I may have been patient with this young woman, but she didn’t see how I had interacted with my children that day. She hadn’t seen me in my home.
How I wished she was right! How I wished I were reflecting Jesus in my patience! But I knew why she wrote what she did. It’s because that’s what I wanted her to see. I’ve been “good” at “showing” patience. I’ve been performative, putting on displays of patience, making it look like I have fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5), while hiding the rotting decay of my sinfulness.
Crafting the persona is a common and acceptable practice in our world. We only show what we want to be seen. We perform image management and create perceptions that cast us in the perfect light.
But this is not acceptable for the Christ follower.
God graciously took that message and began to speak to me about integrity.
Integrity is a virtue that has nearly disappeared from our vocabularies. It’s the opposite of image management. It’s who you are when no one is looking. It’s consistency whether in the light or in the dark, in the open and behind closed doors.
The integrity of the upright guides them,
but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.
Proverbs 11:3 NIV
Image management is a lot like the legalism that Paul argued against in the New Testament. It looks good on the outside, but it has no power to transform us on the inside. Image management is performance based; it says, “if I can perform well enough, I will be good enough.”
While we tend to think we can change ourselves from the outside in, such change is ineffective. Only Jesus can change us from the inside out. Only Jesus can create integrity in us. Only by the Spirit can true spiritual fruit be grown in our lives.
and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.
Acts 13:39 ESV
Jesus, free me from performance and image management. Change me from the inside out. Grow true and healthy fruit in my life. Make me a woman of integrity. Amen!
Reflection:
How’s your integrity? Does any part of this post resonate with you?
Read Galatians 5. Compare performance-based religion to Spirit-led relationship.
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