Making Compromises
In Genesis 13, Abram leaves his home in response to God’s call on his life, and soon he has some difficult decisions to make. And unfortunately, he doesn’t always make the best decisions. For example, we read in verse 1 that "Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him".
On the surface that all sounds pretty reasonable and normal. But in Genesis 12 God called Abram away from his father's house and people. He was meant to leave his relatives behind and just take his wife along with him to begin a new life. But Abram brings his nephew along with him, probably because his father had died.
The Danger of Small Compromises
It seems Abram wasn't able to make that clear break from his past. He brings something from his old life with him—something he was meant to leave behind. That's called compromising! He knew what he was meant to do, but he compromised and did exactly what he wasn’t meant to do.
We've all done it. It's a struggle common to all of us. God calls us to sacrifice, but we find it hard to do so. And we often take just a little bit of our old lives with us into the promised land God gifts us. And it has bad consequences.
A Bit of Sin is Still Sin
A little compromise is still a compromise! Especially when it comes to sin.
I remember when I was a youth leader at our church, we use to meet on Friday nights for youth, and one Friday we had some brownies made, and during youth we handed them out and the kids began nibbling away. Then I stood up and said “OK guys, what if I had to tell you that when we were making these brownies, we mixed in just a little scoop of dog poo! How would that make you feel?” The kids all froze of course, but before pandemonium set in I said “We didn’t! But I think you’ll agree that even a teeny bit of that in your brownie would have ruined it. And it’s the same with sin. The smallest bit still makes the whole soul unclean.”
Maybe Abram thought that this little compromise would go ignored by God. And maybe you’ve also allowed a little bit of sin into your life, justifying it by saying that it’s not as bad as what other people do. But God is not after a heart that’s just less sinful than the next person’s! He wants your heart and mine to be pure and holy, if we would accept His cleansing grace and then refrain, by His power, from going back to sinful things.
Don’t make compromises, friends. Abram did, and it was a costly decision.
