Integrity

Sometimes while reading the Bible, a verse pops out that I have never noticed before.  It makes me want to check my older Bibles and see if it was actually there before!  A week ago in the rooted readings, I ran across a verse that caught my eye like that.

2 Chronicles 8:11  Solomon brought Pharaoh’s daughter up from the city of David to the house that he had built for her, for he said, “My wife shall not live in the house of David king of Israel, for the places to which the ark of the LORD has come are holy.”

It is a simple verse that seems to just give part of history at the time, but look at what it says about Solomon.  Sin#1: He had married a wife from a pagan nation that did not follow the LORD.  Then he would not let her live in David’s temple or anywhere the ark had been because those were holy places.  He KNEW it was sin and found a way to keep doing it!  Sin#2: Choosing rationalization to continue in sin instead of repentance.  He was trying to work the system to make what he had done somehow OK.  It is so easy for any of us to rationalize what we have chosen to do.  Sin grabs us, drags us down, and blinds us to the problem.  The next verse says this,

2 Chron 8:12  Then Solomon offered up burnt offerings to the LORD on the altar of the LORD that he had built before the vestibule,

He is in sin, hiding sin, and now publicly performing acts of worship to God.  Sin #3: Hypocrisy.  It brings integrity to mind, or a lack of integrity.  Integrity in the Bible means soundness, completeness, or the faithful support of a standard of values.  To be sound means to be firm in what we believe and how our actions support that belief.  Integrity means that we are consistent (faithful) with biblical standards.  In the computer field, data integrity meant that the data was correct and stayed the same (consistent).  Solomon was acting without integrity as his actions did not match his worship or his beliefs.  As men, do we act with integrity?  Is there consistency across our actions and between our actions and God’s Word?  If that didn’t challenge me enough, in the next day’s reading we read Prov 20:7.

Prov 20:7   The righteous who walks in his integrity— blessed are his children after him!

Our children are directly impacted by our integrity or lack thereof!  My quest for integrity is not a personal quest that only affects me, but a family quest that affects all those I lead and my children in particular.  They watch us and can spot inconsistencies faster than candy on the counter.  The sobering part of their observance however, is that they may never bring it up, but rather simply learn how to be a “Christian” from our lack of integrity.  Lack of integrity will teach them to follow a counterfeit God that they will probably end up despising.  May we be modeling faithful integrity to God’s standards and heap blessings on our children as a result.  I have a picture of my oldest son and I sitting on a rock fishing.  The rock is sound and stable.  I pray he will see me sitting on the rock of God’s Word and sit there with me.

May my children never hear me tell them to control their attitudes and then see me act in anger or impatience toward them or their mother.  May my children never hear me tell them to be honest and then watch me exaggerate in my stories.  May my children never hear me tell others to walk with God and then never see me on my knees.  May they see God’s love through how I treat my wife.  May they see God’s standards by how I live and lovingly, but firmly enforce them in the home.  May they know by my actions that I love God more than anything.

One last note, 2 Chronicles 12:1,14 summarizes the life of Rehoboam, Solomon’s son.

“1 When the rule of Rehoboam was established and he was strong, he abandoned the law of the LORD, and all Israel with him.  14 And he did evil, for he did not set his heart to seek the LORD.”

His legacy was a divided kingdom and a people that abandoned the Lord.

Men, let’s challenge each other to be men of integrity.  Let’s call each other on it if we are not.  Call me on it if I am not.

Pastor Ron