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Have you ever heard someone say something that sounded insincere? You probably thought, They might be saying all the right words, but I don’t believe them. We may not be able to put words around it, but sometimes we get the feeling that what someone is saying doesn’t match what they are thinking. And if we’re honest, we would admit that describes us sometimes, too. All of us, at some point or another, have said something or even done something that didn’t reflect what was going on in our hearts. Integrity is when what we think and believe on the inside matches what we say and do on the outside. We are living integrated lives because the inside and outside are the same.

In this passage, Jesus draws attention to the people who have made it a habit to live disintegrated lives—lives with a gap between their words and their actions. We may be able to say all the right things, but Jesus isn’t interested in lip service. He is interested in our actual hearts. And He isn’t interested in us just having the correct beliefs; He wants our actions to align with them. In other words, Jesus is calling us to live with integrity, where there is alignment between what we say and do, and between what we believe and how we act.

The more we live in relationship with God, the more likely it is that we will live these lives where every part of us is in alignment with Him.