We usually understand integrity to be synonymous with words like honesty, goodness, moral decency, or righteous character. Merriam-Webster defines it this way, “integrity implies trustworthiness and incorruptibility to a degree that one is incapable of being false to a trust, responsibility, or pledge.” The phrase “incapable of being false” jumps off the page at me. Webster’s Dictionary goes on to tell us that the term integrity is rooted in the Latin word, integritas, meaning “entire or whole.” There is a direct connection between integrity and the word “integrated.” A person of integrity is an integrated person. The integrated person is the same person on the inside and the outside. They have integrated their identity and are one in private and public, inside and out.
One of the marks of sexual addiction is the lack of integrity. Those who are enslaved to sexual addiction have a double life, a private, secret inside life and a public outer life. The outer life is the one which the sexual addict holds up to others and wants them to believe is the real person. This outer man looks good and appears on the surface to be a good husband, father, and churchman. He keeps the outer image polished and looking good but lives in constant terror of being found out for his private, secret inner life. His private, secret life is the life he keeps hidden in darkness. In this secret, private world he views pornography, engages in sexual chats with others, has adulterous affairs, and regular masturbation. He has to constantly scrub his computer of porn and shield his cell phone lest prying eyes see what he’s viewing. It is a stressful life for he constantly lives in fear of being caught by his wife, his children, or his boss. It does not occur to him that the Lord sees it all. The Lord sees everything done in secret or darkness. Hebrews 4:13 tells us that, “And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
We call this kind of man a double life man. He is a dualist living two lives that don’t match. God’s design is for all of us to be monists having only one life. God’s design is that we be the same person inside and out. He desires that we have integrated both lives into one whole life such that what others see is the real us. That is the goal of all sexual addiction counseling. All sexual addiction counselors want their clients to become monistic, whole individuals whose inner life matches their outer life. When that happens they will be men of integrity and God blesses integrity.
No Double Life,
Irv