Devotional
Posted: 10/31/2025
Imagine Christ Himself is coming to your home. You gather your family, your friends, your coworkers, and you tell them they are about to meet Him. Excitement builds. People prepare themselves. They are expecting to encounter holiness face-to-face.
But moments before He arrives, you receive word that He is appointing you to stand in His place — that you will represent Him. The people are still waiting… and you must walk into the room instead of Him.
Would they see Christ through you, or would they only see you?
This is not a dramatic imagination exercise — it is the exact reality of the Christian life. Every day, everywhere you go, you are already representing Him. You are the one carrying His name, His image, and His witness. The only reason this feels overwhelming is because our ego still wants the attention, the control, the last word, the credit — and so it gets in the way.
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The Ego is the Enemy of Integrity
Integrity is not perfection — it is wholeness. It is oneness: the same person in private as in public, the same soul before God as before others.
The ego destroys that unity. It divides us into personas — one for church, one for reputation, one for convenience, and one we hide inside. Double standards are born wherever ego still rules the heart.
The Psalmist prayed, “Give me an undivided heart” (Psalm 86:11), because a divided heart is never free; it is always negotiating with itself. When ego sits on the throne, Christ can only remain a guest. But when ego dies, Christ becomes Lord — not part of the life, but the center of it.
This is why St. John the Baptist gives the blueprint in a single line:
“He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30)
Holiness always begins in subtraction before it ever becomes addition.
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Pride Fractures; Humility Makes Whole
The Fathers understood this long before modern psychology discovered “ego.”
Blessed Augustine teaches:
“It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.”
St. Isaac the Syrian wrote:
“The one who has seen his own sin is greater than the one who raises the dead.”
The saint is not the one who shines brighter than others —
the saint is the one through whom nothing blocks the light of Christ.
The world tells us to be impressive, to project ourselves, to craft an image.
Christ tells us to become transparent, so that what others encounter is Him, not us.
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The Interior Work of Holiness
Holiness is not achieved by being extraordinary, but by removing whatever prevents Christ from being seen. The ego always wants to survive — to remain at the center — but holiness begins the moment it steps aside. When Christ replaces self, a person becomes integrated, whole, and truthful. Nothing is hidden, nothing is divided, nothing is lived twice.
Integrity is what remains when ego has nothing left to protect.
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The Path to Sainthood
You do not become holy by expanding the self, polishing the self, promoting the self, or admiring the self. You become holy when the self decreases enough that the presence of Christ fills its place.
That is integrity — one heart, undivided.
That is wholeness — one life under one Lord.
That is sainthood — a life where Christ becomes visible.
When the ego dies, the soul becomes transparent.
When the soul is transparent, Christ can be seen.
And when Christ can be seen, the world is changed.
He must increase.
We must decrease.
Only then will our witness be whole.
