Honesty in the Bible

All of us have to make daily decisions about whether to handle money honestly. Do you tell the cashier at the store when you receive too much change? Have you ever tried to sell something and been tempted not to tell the whole truth because you might lose the sale?

Honesty in the Bible

Total Honesty

God wants us to be completely honest for the following reasons.

We cannot disobey by practicing dishonesty and still love God. When being dishonest, we behave as if the living God doesn’t even exist! We believe that He is unable to provide exactly what we need even though He has promised to do so (Matthew 6:33). We take the situation into our own hands and do it our own dishonest way. We are also acting as if God is incapable of discovering our dishonesty and powerless to discipline us. If we really believe God will discipline us, we will not consider acting dishonestly.

When we act dishonestly, we are stealing from another person. We may rationalize that it is a business or the government or an insurance company that is suffering loss. Yet, if we look at the bottom line, it is the business owners or fellow taxpayers or policy holders from whom we are stealing. It is just as if we took the money from their wallets. Dishonesty always injures people. The victim is always a person.

Although he was tempted, Robert responded, “I’m sorry, I can’t do that because Jesus Christ is my Lord.” Robert later said, “You should have seen that guy’s reaction. He almost went into shock! Then an interesting thing happened. His attitude completely changed. Not only did he buy the car, but he eagerly joined my wife and me at our dinner table. Rarely have I seen anyone as open to the truth about knowing Jesus Christ in a personal way.”