5 Points on Compromise
1. Follow through on your choice to obey God. Obey when it’s hard, obey when it’s EVEN HARDER.
It’s pretty easy to walk in purity when things are easy. It’s pretty easy to make little grey-area compromises from time to time. It’s pretty easy to give up when it’s really hard. When things are hard, it’s so hard to say no to things that feel so good, even if we know they’re bad for us. When things are hard, it’s hard to wait for God and His timing; it’s hard to trust He knows better. It’s pretty easy to gradually forget why purity matters. It’s pretty easy to slide from little compromises into full-blown captivity.
2. We may compromise when we forget why it matters.
A young woman had heard that purity was important as a teenager, but when she got to her 30s she had forgotten why it mattered. She forgot why it mattered to be ‘counter-cultural’ and not have sex outside of marriage. She had sex for her first time in a relationship that soon ended very messily, and immediately realized the value of what she had given up. She tearfully asked, “Why didn’t anyone remind me that purity mattered?”
3. We may compromise when we believe the lie that God is not coming for us.
I always wanted God, but did I want Him enough to wait for Him and trust His way of meeting me where I was?
Oh that we might know the Lord! Let us press on to know Him, and He will respond to us as surely as the coming of dawn or the rain of early spring. Hosea 6:3 (NLT)
4. We may compromise when we believe the lie that what we will get (from the temporary benefits of sin) will be more than what we will lose (the ramifications of sin).
Before I knew this truth, when I was faced with temptation, it was easy to fall into it because I thought I was getting more than what I would be losing. (See Romans 6:21)
When I feel lonely, discouraged, angry with God, or tired... I could think that some kind of lustful transaction, even as small as locking eyes with some guy, or changing the expression of my eyes to something seductive, will fill me; that even a moment will be sufficient for me. But it never leaves me better than I was before. The appeal is, as a friend once said, chocolate-covered poo.
5. We may compromise again after a bad choice, thinking the second compromise doesn’t matter as much, because “I already did it”.
Each choice does matter. At any moment after falling, repenting does matter. You don’t have to keep falling. Because each time you fall again, you will have to walk out more consequences; you’ll have to walk out more chains falling off. So choose freedom from this point on! And keep choosing freedom! Keep choosing God’s ways! They are freedom. God’s grace is that every choice is a new opportunity to choose Him, to choose the best thing. His mercies are new every morning. (This is a more proper understanding of Lamentations 3:22-23 than my misconception in Day 2; see also Romans 6:14).
Know that every choice is a crossroads. Never let the devil deceive you that your subsequent choice after a wrong choice doesn’t matter.
“You have been courted by my adversary, and you have chosen Me.”1
In each moment of difficulty, we are faced with the choice to either settle for a cheap imitation of what we think we need, or choose Jesus, and trust that He knows and provides what we need. Each time I chose to turn to Jesus, my ‘muscles’ to stand where I previously used to fall grew stronger and stronger. Those old temptations began to lose their power. With each decision to choose Him, I discovered more and more of who He is, and began to see that knowing Him would be a life-long adventure.
[1] Ted Dekker, White: The Great Pursuit