Are You Still Maintaining your Integrity?

Job 2:9-10 His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!” He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. 

Are you still maintaining your integrity? 

Things happen in our lives which are tests from the LORD. Tragedy comes to many in one form or another. Decisions are put in front of us. People we had trusted in fall.

For Job it was the loss of his wealth, his children, his health and his friends. We can lose these things. We do not like to think about how fragile life is but it is.

The loss of a child is summed up in two verses in the scripture:

Genesis 42:36 Genesis 44:27-29 “Your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons. One of them went away from me, and I said, “He has surely been torn to pieces.” And I have not seen him since. If you take this one from me too and harm comes to him, you will bring my gray head down to the grave in misery.’ Their father Jacob said to them, “You have deprived me of my children. Joseph is no more and Simeon is no more, and now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is against me!” 

Matthew 2:16-18 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “A voice is heard in Ramah,weeping and great mourning,Rachel weeping for her childrenand refusing to be comforted,because they are no more.” 

Job had this plus the loss of all his wealth and then his health.

The words of his wife (nameless) 

Are you still maintaining your integrity? 

You see your integrity cannot be taken away. Who you are, your character is yours to make and keep.

Only you can destroy it. That is the only way you can lose it.

Job's wife had bad theology. She looked at God as making life comfortable and happy without trials, or did she? May be she looked at God as Someone Who was there when you needed Him but not to get that involved in your life, particularly if it was going well.

The only comforter Job has left is his wife and she turns out to be a thorn in his flesh. She cannot understand faith in God in circumstances like these. Fair weather Christians always get shipwrecked in a storm like this. 

Are you still maintaining your integrity? Big loaded question.

1. Integrity Takes a Long Time For Others To Know About But It Can Be Destroyed In A Moment!

Job was a business man. The word perfect (1.1) means he had correct scales- weights and measurements. When I worked in the grocery store the State of New York would send in its agent of weights and mesaurements. They would check the produce and meat scales to make sure they were accurate. Job made sure of this. He was known by this.

Proverbs 11:1 The LORD detests dishonest scales, but accurate weights find favor with Him. 

You build a reputation as you live. Integrity is something you have and you keep. As you do others get to know about it.

WARNING: That can be lost in a moment by doing something stupid!

Note: Job did not set his heart on his riches.

Inegrity is earned by the life we live and the decisions we make. It is a way of life both publicly and privately.

2. Integrity Is Tested.

Integrity is an unswerving loyalty to the LORD.

Job was tested by the losses he sustained. Suffering tests integrity. C.S. Lewis said that it was not until a man was tortured that you found out what was really in him. 

“Nothing will shake a man-or at any rate a man like me-out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself.”

Sometimes we are tested by the gains we experience. Those tests may be even more difficult. How we handle money shows our integrity. 

The true test of a person is what they are when no one is watching, how they conduct htemselves in the privacy of their homes.

No matter what may be the test, God will take care of you. Mrs. Brownman, greatest teacher I ever had. She labored to see us do well. She longed for us to do our best. Oral test on Middle East when I returned from being sick. God wanted Job to pass the tests. He knew He would. The same is true for us!

Sometimes maintaning our integrity means standing our ground. Psalm 27.14 is advice I often give t others and try to live by myself.

3. Maintaining Your Integrity In The Face of Suffering.

The book of Job is about that.

Here is how it is done.

Cast a glance at riches.

Always do what is right.

Never compromise.

Do it before the LORD.

Rest in His Grace and knowledge.

Are you still maintaining your integrity?