Integrity Breach!

Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!” Job 2:9

Integrity: the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles, moral uprightness. This is what Job held onto even in the face of what may be the worst advice one person gave to another in all of the Bible. (Perhaps second only to: "Try this fruit, Adam, it's really tasty!") When we speak of our reputation or our good name, this quality is what we hold dear. Should a person gain a reputation for a lack of integrity many career paths will close down. Most newsworthy scandals involve an accusation or allegation of an integrity breach, and if it turns out to be true the consequences are often severe. Many people over here do not care one way or another about the sport of cricket, but you will see in the news articles about an integrity breach in the Australian national team, and you will feel some outrage over it.

We can know how important it is by the many ways in which we are tempted to breach our integrity every day. If we fall into that temptation, we can live with the regret for the remainder of our lives, even if we are never 'caught' at it. Of course, God knows all things so that little integrity breach you or I committed back in the day did not go unnoticed. Just sitting here and writing this, instances of my own integrity breaches come back to haunt me from the distant past. Which, at least shows how much the Lord has produced a desire in me for integrity.

So, like Job, we all want to hold fast to integrity because our Lord Father in Heaven values it, and because He has grown in us a desire to hold it tightly. How are we going to do that? In Christ the Lord of course! My grip is too weak to hold onto something so valuable on my own, I will trust in Him! As Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Phil 4:13)

Bucky