HONOR AND INTEGRITY

 

© Morris Ruddick

 

“ For this purpose I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me .” Colossians 1:29 NAS

 

This verse in Colossians describes the Apostle Paul's life purpose strategy: “ Striving according to His power .” That life purpose is summarized in the previous verse: “ That we may present every man complete in Christ .”

 

This passage underscores one of the two primary purposes of the SIGN ministry, which is to raise the standard of maturity within the Body. Individual spiritual maturity has seen significant progress during this last generation. Incredible levels of substantive teaching have been available due to the information age. Internet communications that link various segments of the Body are now expanding our awareness and strategic outlook.

 

The process toward Body maturity begins by developing our individual gifts to the level that releases our life purpose. As the individual gifts mature, they are combined to operate together as community gifts. Yet, despite the groundswell of progress individually, maturity at the Body level falls short of the high calling mantle.

 

A clearer understanding of the myopia short-circuiting Body maturity may require an out-of-the-box viewing of the matter. Identifying constraints and stumbling points that impact those paving the path during transitions are significant to the issue. With the goal of mapping out and building up, it may take only a few glimmers of wisdom to break the barriers of old mind-sets clouding the path for those leading the way into this maturity.

 

Navigating the Pathway of Change

Despite differences in our approach, there's an interesting overlap in perspective that my wife and I share regarding how individual gifts operate as the foundation for those wielding change. The understanding of the gifts I seek is to find the roots and models of their dynamics outlined by scripture. As a licensed psychotherapist, my wife Carol seeks to understand the roots of an individual's motivational tendencies.

This overlap in understanding how our individual gifts operate begins with a personality test that Carol often administers to her patients. This test helps people define their strengths, so that in a healthy way they can avoid being trapped in their weaknesses.

 

Perhaps because it describes her own personality, I hear her talk a lot about the personality profile labeled as a “One.” Ones strive for perfection. They are high achiever types. A very similar profile is that of the “Performers.” Performers are very similar in the results they achieve to the “Ones,” except that they are motivated more by ambition, whereas Ones are driven most strongly by their desire to do the right thing. Performers tend more toward conformity, whereas Ones are more out-of-the-box in the way they do things. The difference is between those who produce and those who multiply.

 

Within the same context, having had friends who have been in professional sports, I have pondered the commonalities and differences found with those I worked with in my service as a career Marine officer. The shared commonalities, of course, are in the discipline and standards of excellence. The key difference, from my experience, might be summed up by my wife's personality profile describing the Ones and the Performers. Performers tend to stall out as they reach plateaus, whereas Ones are continually lifting the lids on the plateaus.

 

My purpose for describing these profiles is that they have a significant bearing on the issue of societal transformation. This is the goal of Body maturity. Those called as modern-day Josephs and Daniels have callings that not only operate within the context of change, but they serve as catalysts for change. So it is that our response to change demands that we recognize the dynamics not only that bring the best results, but that are operating to ensnare and hold back the change being initiated by the Holy Spirit.

 

The Mark of a High Calling

Becoming a Christian and understanding what a “calling” is, was not hard for one who had been a career Marine. From the offset, Marine officers are imparted with the responsibility reflected by the words in their commission as an officer that: “ the President of the United States puts special trust and confidence ” in the person being commissioned. Those who embrace the Marine Corps as a career share the common bond of doing so as a calling. Within that calling and the expectation of excellence that go with being a Marine, are the foundational attributes of honor and integrity.

 

While the Apostle Paul describes selfish ambition amidst a number of interacting traits on a pathway to evil, ambition itself is not necessarily a negative characteristic. There is an unselfish ambition. Unselfish ambition is often accompanied by zeal. Yet, there is a zeal that scripture refers to “ zeal without knowledge .” The fact is that we have to be in touch with ourselves and with reality to avoid the snares on the path of bearing the mantle of a high calling. To be used by God means we have to be intimately in touch with Him; without the clouding of the perverse forms of ambition. That's where honor and integrity come into play.

 

On the day that I was sworn into the Marine Corps, the Major who administered the oath asked me to raise my right hand. Then he hesitated before proceeding and looking me square in the eye, said: “ You know that you may be called on to give your life for what you believe in .” I recognized and stated that I did and he went on with swearing me in.

 

A high calling embraces a cause. Many within the Body operate with a lot of vision, zeal and ambition, but it is the few who have embraced a cause. People will live for a vision, but will die for a cause. So it is, that “ many are called, but few are chosen .”

 

Honor embraces the cost of the cause. Integrity faces the realities to see it through.

 

In the early days of our walk with the Lord, we were friends with a couple who were genuine pioneers. They broke the mold and went into some life and death situations and prepared segments of the Body for times of persecution. Before “early-morning” prayer venues became popular in churches, we used to meet early each day with this couple for prayer. They wrote one of the best books on missions that I've yet to read. Few people I had known had either the wisdom or the track record demonstrated by my friend.

 

A transition then came. This couple stepped back from their role as pioneers, settled in to raise their family and pastor a church. Over time they became popular guests on Christian TV talk shows. Then tragedy hit them with the death of their son. My friend, who had once reflected all the attributes of one following the pathway of the Apostle Paul, spun out. In bitterness, he left the Lord, along with his family. He lost the spiritual balance he had once modeled.

 

The ambition of his calling, along with the integrity and honor tied to embracing the realities and paying the cost of the cause he had once served, had lost its focus. Operationally, he had shifted from an orientation of being one who lifted the lid on plateaus to one who had peaked out. I still weep in praying for his restoration, yet the truth is sobering: “ many are called, but few are chosen .”

 

Honor embraces the cost of the cause. Integrity faces the realities to see it through. Holding the course of the high calling pivots on whether the goal is through human effort, or by yielding ourselves to that divine energy that works mightily within us.

 

The Pathway of the Calling

As he pointed out the importance of the leadership principle of delegation, Moses' father-in-law also succinctly outlined the process that under girds a high calling and life purpose among God's people: “ Teach them the principles and precepts, then show them pathway in which they must walk and the work that they must do .” (Exodus 18:20)

 

Understanding the work that we do, must be based not only on the principles and precepts, but in maintaining the right pathway as our life purpose in God unfolds in its completeness. Jesus emphasized this truth bearing on our destiny when He explained that wide is the gate and pathway to destruction, but narrow is the gate and difficult is the way that leads to life. The narrow pathway is the one in which the ambition is on knowing God's heart and flowing in unison with Him. It is the one that brings multiplication rather than just producing.

 

Maintaining our life purpose is based on the premise that it is not what we can do for God, but rather what we allow Him to do through us. This is the pathway that leads the way into change that makes a difference in terms of God's purposes.

 

What guides us through this pathway is honor and integrity. Honor is the reflection of the conduct by which we bring credit the One we serve. “ He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who seeks the glory of the One who sent is true and no unrighteousness dwells in him .” (John 7: 18-19)

 

In the Lord, honor will never come from self-promotion, but is only bestowed by God, as we walk out the pathway into our calling: “ No one takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God .” (Hebrews 5:4)

 

Integrity is more than simply doing the right thing. Integrity is best explained in Psalm 15 where it refers to being guided by “ speaking truth in your own heart .”

 

The gateway into the high-calling “work” that we must do pivots on the Hebrew word for righteousness: tz'dakah. Tz'dakah is the word used in the proverb stating that “ righteousness exalts a nation. ” The Jewish community has long had a better grasp of this word tz'dakah than the Church. It is more correctly translated as righteous charity or charitable righteousness. It operates within the context of community. It is righteous charity or charitable righteousness that exalts a nation.

 

Similarly within the Jewish community are those referred to as “the righteous:” the tz'dakim. They are righteous community-builders whose charitable impact makes a difference. With more than half the scriptures on “righteousness” being within the context of stewardship, this concept of righteous charity or charitable righteousness, unveils unique insight for the path into our life purpose. It goes far beyond our Western Christian self-improvement programs and what we can do for God. It is released by us flowing in what we allow God to do through us and is the distinctive that determines the difference between the many who are called and the few who are chosen.

 

The Kingdom Dynamic

What's being described by the words of Paul's life purpose strategy has its roots in the dynamic that drives the Kingdom. The Kingdom is designed to operate within and bring change to the world's systems. Just as Joseph operated alongside of Pharaoh, the Kingdom doesn't play according to the world's rules. It transforms them. These Kingdom principles are paradoxes to the natural mind. We lead by serving. We find life by dying to it. We wield power by yielding. We obtain by giving. We gain honor through humility. They are the keys to the power that transforms.

 

Body maturity and societal transformation go hand in hand. Societal change will result from Body maturity. This level of change entails paving new ground and a leadership mantle that bears a Kingdom calling. From the beginning, the model for change has encompassed more. A large proportion of the heroes of faith were Kingdom entrepreneurs. As such, business is a means of paving new ground that pivots on change.

 

The Kingdom model has a combined three-fold foundation of being God-centered, entrepreneurial and community-focused. The Jewish people have been a gift to the world, wielding this model of change. Kingdom entrepreneurship is a strategic tool designed to map a pathway of change. Paving new ground involves breaking old molds that brings about change. In short, entrepreneurship is the art of managing change.

 

Over the centuries, the Jewish people have served as advisors to kings and been merchants of transformation. Western civilization has its roots in the Jewish Torah. From the Torah have come the foundational principles of the world's most successful governmental, societal, ethical, legal and economic systems.

 

Like Joseph the Patriarch, who rose to power in Egypt from the most unlikely beginnings of slavery and prison, the clarion call today is for a Body maturity that can take up this mantle of power--with the honor that embraces the cost of the cause and the integrity that faces the realities to see it through.

 

“ We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed—always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in the body.” 2 Corinthians 4:7-10

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Morris Ruddick has been a forerunner and spokesman for the call of God among business leaders. He is author of “The Joseph-Daniel Calling” and “Gods Economy , Israel and the Nations,” which address the mobilization of today's top-down and bottom-up economic and community dimensions of Gods Word. They are available from Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and other popular outlets.

 

Mr. Ruddick is also the founder of the Global Equippers Entrepreneurial Program, which imparts hope and equips economic community builders where God's light is dim. To schedule a speaking engagement, sponsor a workshop, make a donation or to get more information on how you can help, contact Global Initiatives at 303.741.9000.

 

2008 Copyright Morris Ruddick — sign@strategic-initiatives.org

 

Reproduction is prohibited unless permission is given by a SIGN advisor. Since 1996, the Strategic Intercession Global Network (SIGN) has mobilized prophetic intercessors committed to targeting strategic-level issues impacting the Body on a global basis. For more information on SIGN, check: www.strategicintercession.org