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Note: This is Part 3 of a 3 part Series. Subscribe with rss or by email to be updated.

Now let’s take a look at what the Bible says about integrity.  In the Bible, integrity is translated 16 times in the Old Testament by the translators of the King James Version. No Greek word, however, was translated “integrity” in the New Testament though the concept is there. Ephesians 5 is an example of passages that obviously point to integrity.

My point though is the places where the tension, as I have mentioned earlier, exists. We can see in 1 John 1: 8-9, for example, that nobody is perfect and completely blameless. All of us experience lapses in integrity in some ways. The halos we put on our heroes of faith like Abraham, Moses, David and others are mere hallucinations. They are people like us who are prone to fail and experience lapses in integrity. None of them has really been completely consistent.

David was an adulterer and a murderer but he was also the man after God’s own heart. Jacob was a deceiver but the Peniel experience changed his life. Peter’s lapse in integrity was monumental yet he preached the first Pentecostal sermon and 3000 were saved. Job was said to be blameless and upright but later on the book named after him he repented because he had a lapse in integrity as well. He said, right before God appeared to discuss with him, “curse be the day that I was born.”

We can go on and on- the list of people who have been commended for their faith yet experienced lapses in integrity is long. We can cite Noah who was said to be righteous yet at one point we saw him nude and drunk; Shem and Japheth needed to put a blanket on him backwards so as not to expose their father’s nakedness. Or perhaps, let us mention Elijah, after a powerful encounter with God on Mount Carmel faltered in his faith. He was so overcome by fear so in desperation asked God to kill him instead.

The Bible is clear on this if we are just honest enough and humble enough to accept. Pointing fingers at people who failed and branding them as fake and fraud and as people without integrity is a huge mistake. Few soldiers if there are any goes to battle and come home without scratches, cuts or wounds.

I remember the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15. We sometimes tend to be more like the older brother than the prodigal who came back home.

Note that one went about to squander all that his father had given him in sinful living but returned repentant. The other stayed home but was proven to have his heart really wandering away. His heart was vengeful and accusatory.

The most beautiful thing about the parable though is the fact that regardless of these brothers’ lapses in integrity, the father showed love for both.

Here then is a nugget of wisdom and a lesson in integrity- for a repentant believer, it doesn’t matter how grave the sin is, healing and forgiveness comes and a wounded integrity can be mended. For the unrepentant believer though, it was to him that integrity is lost.

That doesn’t get in the way, however, of our personal responsibility to maintain a high standard of life especially in the eyes of our audience of One.

Life in the kingdom is not an easy business. Satan goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. We must therefore be watchful at all times – watchful, not only of our fellow believers’ life but most important of all, of our own life.

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