Tag: Maintain Your Integrity in the Midst of Suffering - Job 27-28

Job 27:1-6 (Job Continues: I Will Maintain My Integrity)

And Job again took up his discourse, and said:

“As God lives, who has taken away my right,

and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter,

as long as my breath is in me,

and the spirit of God is in my nostrils,

my lips will not speak falsehood,

and my tongue will not utter deceit.

Far be it from me to say that you are right;

till I die I will not put away my integrity from me.

I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go;

my heart does not reproach me for any of my days.

Tag: Maintaining Integrity, Despite Suffering

This entire story of Job centers around Satan wanting Job to curse God because of his suffering.   God and Satan have a bet.   Satan accused the “righteous” Job of holding onto God and his righteous living because God had blessed him so.   Satan, coercive in nature, believed that Job, once caught with suffering, would, like Satan and all others, curse God.  Note the earlier verse:

Job 1:9-11

Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.”

Yet, as we have seen so far (and it will be repeated to the end), God was right.  Job did not curse God.   Instead, he even refuses (as the above verses state) to agree with his friends accusations:  That this suffering was a result of his evil walk.  Job will maintain his integrity to the end.  God will, in the end both correct Job’s pride and, still, bless him.  But, Job will keep his integrity and walk in it, despite the circumstances around him.   In our modern society we often see those who are caught in bad circumstances disregard their integrity.  Job simply wanted to maintain who he was despite what was happening to him.   Perhaps the definition of integrity is in this example:  Be who you are despite what has happened to you.  In God’s grace Job did just that.