SWORD OF THE SPIRIT                                                                                    1008

“Compromised”

…but they mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did. (Psalm 106:35)

I was writing a quick note to my work team the other day referencing the set up for a Christmas shopping area. I caught myself starting to write ‘Xmas’ instead of ‘Christmas’. I refused to make that shorthand compromise and took the time to write out the full word. While this may seem like a small, insignificant thing, it did give me pause to consider how extensive compromise has become in the Body of Christ.

Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, (2 Corinthians 6:17)

Have you noticed how Christians seek to ‘blend in’ with the world? Compromise is evident in the provocative clothes we wear and the movies and games we are entertained by. Christians have even come up with our ‘almost cuss words’ to use instead of the ‘F-bomb’ and using the Lord’s Name in vain as the world does. Our words sound like the vulgarities used by the world but are not the same. For all practical purposes however, we have spoken inappropriately. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil. (Matthew 5:37)

Charles Spurgeon once said, “Discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong. It is knowing the difference between right and almost right.”

It is becoming increasingly evident given our world society’s downward spiral into moral decay of the importance to have a sanctified, set apart, no-compromise, Christian lifestyle character.“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste…It is no longer good for anything… (Matthew 5:13) Know this: your lifestyle character may be the only ‘Bible’ others will ‘read’. The lost will not readily listen to the testimony given by a compromised Christian.

Many corporate church denominations have succumbed to the temptation to compromise on the infallible Truth of God’s Word in order to continue to attract ‘followers’. We have it backwards. The truth of God’s Word, Jesus, the Living Word of God is supposed to impact our culture for the better. Instead we have allowed modern cultural norms to undermine and attempt to redefine who Jesus is and what He said.

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Timothy 4:3-4)

I stand with Franklin Graham when he said,  “In the end, I would rather be on the wrong side of public opinion than on the wrong side of Almighty God who established the standard of living for the world He created…”

May the Holy Spirit give you discernment to know what is right and almost right. May you have the courage to live a no-compromise Christian lifestyle. May you be salt and light to this world ready in season to share the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.