Integrity is a quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. It was the very backbone of our nation. Notice I refer to it in the past tense.
"Better is the poor who walks in his integrity, than the rich who is perverse in his speech and is a [self-confident] fool." Proverbs 19:1, Amplified
There is only one thing that a man can possess within himself that no one else can take. That is integrity. No one has the power to remove it from the grasp of anyone else. Integrity, however, can be given up.
What the Bible is stating here is that it is much better to be a man, or woman, of integrity than it is to be rich. Can a man of integrity have riches? Sure. Job was such a man. He was extremely rich and blessed on this earth until the Lord allowed for Satan to remove his possessions, then his family, then Job himself. Though Job came dangerously close to blasphemy, he kept his integrity and remained faithful to the Lord.
Nicodemus, being a Pharisee, was a man of means. He was also a man of integrity. At first he came under the cover of night to discuss the spiritual things with Jesus. Later he chose to stand against his peers. "Nicodemus (he who came to Jesus by night, being one of them0 said to them, 'Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing?'" (John 7:50-51, NKJV) Later he also took part in the burying of Jesus.
You see, nothing external can define who I am. But integrity exposes who I am. When faced with the opportunity to sin, my integrity (or lack of it) exposes who I am. Do you have integrity?
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