A while back, as I was doing my daily bible reading, I came across this passage about integrity:
You shall not have in your back differing weights, a large and a small. You shall not have in your house differing measures, in large and a small. A full and fair weight you shall have, a full and fair measure you shall have, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. For everyone who does these things, everyone who acts unjustly is an abomination to the Lord your God. – Deuteronomy 25:13-16
God expected the Israelites to operate with honesty and integrity both in trade and business. The picture here is of a merchant in the marketplace who, as he conducts business, carries false weights and scales, which will measure things in his favor. This is similar to someone in modern times gambling with weighted dice.
The Bible has a lot to say about having integrity, especially as you operate your business. As you can see from the verses above, and the many more that I didn’t even enclose, how we handle our business is very important.
We need to do everything with integrity and honor and honesty. In fact, the measure of success when it comes to how we deal with others, especially in business or financial matters, is not whether we were profitable, able to get our way, or even if we were able to make someone happy, but it’s if we operate with honesty and integrity.
Even if we have a business that fails, or we try an endeavor and it doesn’t work out, we can know it was a success in God’s eyes, if we operate with integrity, honesty, godly character.
[Question: Does hard work show a lack of faith?]
Because most people in this country don’t own their own business, but in fact work for someone else, we may feel as though these verses don’t apply to us. However we must realize that we do own a business in a sense – we own our labor, our intellect, and our abilities, and we are to use all these things with integrity for our clients. It’s just in many cases, we call our clients our boss, manager, or supervisor.
I think we have to really look at how we approach work and other things that we do in life. We need search our hearts and make sure that we are operating with integrity in all that we do (even if it causes us to lose favor with a boss that is asking us to bend the rules or fudge numbers). If we can do that then we know that we have been pleasing to God.
There’s a lot more that can be said about this, and most likely I will write about it in the future, but I just wanted to put that quick thought out there as it definitely hit me hard as I read it and thought about the consequences.
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
This is one of the biggest issues in my workplace. I really have a hard time working with people that will straight up lie directly to your face.
I try to work with the people that are honest and have integrity, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. Hopefully they’ll see the good example I’m setting and understand that it is OK to make mistakes and that you don’t have to lie about things…
There is so little integrity in the workplace these days, people seem to see how much they can get away with. Shame
I agree. We see how little we can do and how far we can push the envelope before getting fired.
I remember my first job in high school. There was a notebook where we signed in and out. I would always put the exact time, down to the minute. My co-workers kept telling me to round it, but I felt funny doing so. It wasn’t until the owner told me the same that I started to. And even then, I would round in the other direction half the time to keep things even.
That is a very important time to start operating with integrity. I am sure that it made a good impression with the owner.
I try to keep my integrity when in the workplace or anywhere for that matter. It is really all that I have and I have built my reputation on it. It is sad to see that there are many that lack the integrity, but those people are usually weeded out after some time.
I believe that our character and reputation are the only things (besides relationships) that we can really take with us no matter what happens to us financially.
I read once that personal integrity was the #1 life characteristic found in research that was evident in the lives of the rich. Definitely a must for success.
I didn’t realize that, but I definitely don’t doubt it.
What a great point! My wife’s dad always told his kids that he didn’t care what they did professionally as long as they did it with honor. Same idea here. We all have multiple jobs in our life, professional and otherwise, and if we’re not doing them with integrity we’re doing both ourselves and those around us a great injustice.
I love that idea. How you work is much more important than the title. I hate seeing what sin and dishonesty have done to this world. It is so hard to trust people.
Yes! I despise working with people who are untruthful.
I would never consider lying to coworkers or bosses, but I have colleagues that do this all the time. It is very frustrating!
Oh yes, watching people lie and take advantage of someone who is trusting. It usually works out bad for all involved!
I’ve seen it happen so many times at work, and it causes so much stress and tension!
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