Integrity means what?

I heard of a person that went to a job interview and during the interview the question was asked "how do you define integrity"?  That is a pretty unique question, didn't have anything to do with experience, background, qualifications for the task, intellectual prowiss or physical capabilities.  It was a question of your inner thinking.

Choice between what you stand for and being tempted to give in to something that is not the foundation of who you are.  Is that the question at hand?  I sometimes wonder what was so wrong when Eve (and Adam) were given the suggestion that they could be just like God if they just took a bite of the apple?  Sure they had been told "they must not" but come on what is so wrong with being just like God?  After all God created us!

God poises a question to Cain in Genesis 4:6; Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

Is that what we all face when tested with a compromise to what we truly believe for something less?

Take a look at Mt. 4:1-10, the account of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness after fasting for 40 days and nights.  Were the questions really wrong?  Take a look at them, was there anything asked that was not true?  Someone asking in a way that simply suggests if what you say or believe is really true or are there situations it maybe means something else?  In our society we define that as situational ethics.  In a blink thinking gets all tangled up.

In Hebrews 4:15 it says "For we do not have a high priest (aka Jesus) who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.

That takes integrity, it takes conviction to stick to who you say you are, who you want to be seen as despite what the situation may allow (situation ethics).  In Isaiah 30:21 it says "Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”  

Jesus knows we all make bad choices, sometimes we turn left when we should have turned right in our decisions.  We usually regret later on which way we turned.  He empathizes because he was tempted just like us, the difference is He did not give in to the wrong choice.  Then out of His Love, His Empathy, He willingly paid the price for those wrong decisions, wrong turns we made.  HE PAID THE PRICE IN FULL for those who believe and follow Him.

Oh by the way,  the answer the person gave when asked how they defined integrity during the interview was "Doing what is right when no one is watching".