Mine Integrity.
Achieving integrity requires enshrining the blessed Spirit of God within us, who alone originates and maintains perfect love to God and man.
F.B. Meyer emphasizes the concept of integrity as wholeness and wholeheartedness, drawing from Job's reflections on purity, justice, and compassion. He outlines Job's standards, which include purity in actions, care for the marginalized, and a heart free from greed and idolatry. Meyer challenges the audience to reflect on these principles as a personal catechism, urging that true integrity is rooted in the love of God, which can only be realized through the Holy Spirit and a relationship with Jesus Christ. He highlights the impossibility of achieving such integrity through human effort alone, stressing the need for divine assistance.
Text
Mine integrity. Job xxxi. 6.
INTEGRITY is from the Latin word integrita, wholeness. It means whole‑heartedness. It is interesting in this chapter to see what, in Job's estimation, it involved.
v.1. Purity in the look.
v.7. Cleanliness of the hands.
v.13. Thoughtfulness for domestic servants and underlings.
v.16. Justice to the poor and the widow.
v.17. Willingness to share morsels, and to be a father to the fatherless.
v.19, 20. Clothing for the naked.
v.21. The refusal to depute to others help which one might render.
v.24.. The heart weaned from the love of gold.
v.26. Refusal to turn aside to idols.
v.29. Inability to rejoice at the destruction of those who had derided and hated.
v. 33. The frank confession of wrong‑doing.
It becomes us prayerfully to go over these items, and use them as the catechism of our soul; for if this was the standard of character for one who lived so many centuries before the full revelation of Christ, what should not our standard be! How impossible, however, it is to live like this from without! We must enshrine within us the blessed Spirit of God, who alone originates and maintains that perfect love to God and man which compared to Job's maxims is as the heart to the body. Law is given as the expression of God's will for the regulation of life: but it is impossible to keep the law till we have the love; and it is impossible to have the love until we have the Lord Jesus Christ, through the Holy Ghost.
Sermon Outline
- The Importance of Integrity
- Thoughtfulness and Justice
- The Heart's Condition
- The Role of the Holy Spirit
- The Spirit of God as the Source of Love
- The Importance of Christ and the Holy Ghost
- Joy in the Destruction of Enemies (Job 31:29)
Key Quotes
“It is impossible to live like this from without; we must enshrine within us the blessed Spirit of God, who alone originates and maintains that perfect love to God and man which compared to Job's maxims is as the heart to the body.” — F.B. Meyer
“Law is given as the expression of God's will for the regulation of life: but it is impossible to keep the law till we have the love; and it is impossible to have the love until we have the Lord Jesus Christ, through the Holy Ghost.” — F.B. Meyer
Application Points
- We must strive to enshrine the blessed Spirit of God within us to achieve integrity.
- It is impossible to keep the law without having the love, which comes from having the Lord Jesus Christ, through the Holy Ghost.
- Our standard of character should be higher than that of Job, who lived before the full revelation of Christ.