Job 2:3
“Then the LORD said to Satan, ‘Have you considered My servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited Me against him to ruin him without reason.”
Daniel 6:4-5
” – – the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. Finally these men said, ‘We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God.'”
Here are two godly men who demonstrated character and integrity in spite of trial and suffering. We are living in a day when it seems that integrity is so seldom demonstrated that we do not even know the meaning. My major professor in graduate school was a stickler on the meaning of words. In memory of Dr. Maloof, I checked in Merriam Webster’s Dictionary and found three descriptive words to describe integrity: Incorruptibility, Soundness, and Completeness. It also gave the word “honesty” as a synonym.
Job is thought to be the oldest book in the Bible. Job himself was a man who was the priest of his family and dedicated to the Lord God. Jesus especially spoke of the heart as being the important element in worship. The external customs and duties were of no value if the heart was not right with God. We might say here, that we can fool people fairly easily, but we can never fool God. When we read that God spoke words of praise to Satan concerning Job’s integrity, He knew what was in Job’s heart.
What would God say to Satan about you or me? Would He delight in reminding Satan of our heart being blameless and upright? Would He say that we have a reverential fear of Him that pleases him? Would He say that we shun the evil that is so prevalent all around us? What would God say about your integrity? When no one is watching – when we are away from the prying eyes of family and friends, what is the level of our integrity?
Daniel was taken into captivity as a young man. He demonstrated integrity by not wanting to eat and drink that which Nebuchadnezzar’s stewards served. He was never known to compromise his beliefs, even when it may have seemed easier to go with the flow. He was answerable to the God of the universe, and that was far more important than any earthly monarch.
In the passage from Daniel 6, these administrators and satraps (governors), tried everything they could to find a lack of integrity which they could use to discredit him. They could find nothing that could be the basis of accusation against him. Hey! There were over 100 of these snoops trying to find any fault in his personal life or in his official work for the king, and they could find none. They finally concluded that the only way they would find any charges against him was in connection with the law of his God.
That just leaves me breathless! If we had a pack of investigators going through every scrap of paper in our wastebasket, our computer memory, the words that we spoke, actions that we took or the people we saw, would they find incriminating evidence against us?
Is our life a life of integrity? Do we live in a way that is pleasing to God and without violating moral absolutes as presented in the Word of God? The word is integrity!
Blessings dear hearts. Walk with God today. Trust Him completely and become a real blessing.
— Pastor Cecil