Let’s talk about ‘false integration’ points.  Because we are born in a fallen state and live in a world with ‘fallen’ values and the overall world mindset and operating system is generally broken; even when the weather outside is nice and the stock market is performing well and our family and friends are well and healthy; even on those days, we live in a broken world because we know the Bible clearly teaches that the ‘whole world system is under the (temporary) power and influence of evil and the orchestrator of evil.  We know that we are children of God and that the world around us is under the control of the evil one.  1 John 5:19 NLT 

From the time we are a small child, we are influenced by the false illusions and values of the fallen world system.  (Yes, I am using the word ‘fallen’ in a repetitious manner ‘so that’ I can emphasize the understanding that the world that we live in, with its ideas and values, is truly operating in contrast to the values and ideas as God’s intention for man as purposed and designed in the creature-Creator relationship).  False integration points are those pursuits and possessions and loves in this life and system wherein we seek to integrate them into a wrong position or hierarchy in our sense of being and self.  We, and generally speaking not with wrong intentions, we seek to frame our emotional and psychological identity, our sense of our ‘self’ by seeking and achieving position, power, love, things, and accomplishment.  And all of these are and can be very good, unless they become a primary integration point of how we see ourselves as a whole man and thus they become for us ‘false integration’ points.  In all of these things, we must see them as gifts from God and useful and in relationship to His primary purpose and plan for our life as the creature in relationship to the Creator.  And for the Christian, when we make other ‘things’ in this life to have more integration into our sense of who we are and what we think about and the time and energy we give to these temporary ‘things’…we are living God’s plan and intention for our life ‘less’ now, and thus are creating loss now and in eternity, simply by the false integration of other ‘things’ into the rightful place of God as to Him being our #1 integration point for our purpose and identity in life.  And within all of ‘this’ and ‘that’ lies the primary challenge for most Christians, including me, wherein I too easily allow myself to be overly integrated into the world’s ideas of self and what gives pleasure to self and what creates identity of self within the fallen system that we live.  Meaning, I spend too much time being conformed to the values/ideas, the mold of this world).  

Verses from I John 5 NLT:    1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has become a child of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves his children, too. 2 We know we love God’s children if we love God and obey his commandments. 3 Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. 4 For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith. 5 And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God. 

11 And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life. 

18 We know that God’s children do not make a practice of sinning, for God’s Son holds them securely, and the evil one cannot touch them. 19 We know that we are children of God and that the world around us is under the control of the evil one. 

20 And we know that the Son of God has come, and he has given us understanding so that we can know the true God. And now we live in fellowship with the true God because we live in fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the only true God, and he is eternal life. 

21 Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.  

And anything, any ‘thing’ that takes God’s place in our hearts is a false integration point.  Only God can fully satisfy our longings, our drives, our hunger.  Only God, the Creator-designer of purpose and intention, can satisfy and give integration to what he designed and made, which is our whole ‘self’.   We are wired to find full peace and joy ‘in’ him.  Nothing else in this life can provide the same level of peace, joy, satisfaction, or wholeness of self.  

Thoughts developed or used directly from the work of Schaeffer, Francis. True Spirituality . Tyndale House Publishers, Inc