Friday, July 16: Compromise means promise together!

Sometimes, it seems like all of life is a compromise. Compromise is defined as a settlement in which each side makes concessions. Lawyers spend hours negotiating compromises to ease time spent in litigation. One of the best Biblical examples of compromise comes from the wisdom of King Solomon. Two harlots from the same house gave birth to children three days apart. When one of the newborn infants died in the night, the mother of that baby took the other woman’s baby. Of course, she denied those claims. Solomon, gifted in God’s wisdom, had to make a judgment though he was not there at the time.


And the king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to one, and half to the other.”
1 Kings 3:25


Of course, the thieving mother was fine with that result, as her baby already had died. Yet the actual mother revealed her honesty when she acknowledged that she would rather have the other mother raise the child than to see her child die. Solomon gave the true mother her child back.


American news reporter Jane Wells said, “Learn the wisdom of compromise for it is better to bend a little than to break.” That might be wisdom when it comes to settling differences within a family or marriage, yet it is ignorance when it comes to compromising principles! Elbert Hubbard, a 20th-century American writer, had a different perspective when he said, “It’s the weak man who urges compromise, never the strong man.”

God does not compromise. One of His attributes is that He cannot change, so consequently, getting involved in deal-making would demonstrate that He didn’t know what He was doing to begin with. Additionally, we know that God always keeps His side of the bargain, which makes the only cheaters on the other side of the bargaining table. When God makes a promise, we can take that covenant to the bank. Do our promises hold that same strength?


As Christians, we are faced with compromise on a daily basis. Do you compromise your integrity at work? Are your business ethics different from your ethics when dealing with fellow believers at church? “Everyone else does it,” shouldn’t be an excuse, as we are not accountable to everyone else. Yet we are accountable to God. Do we compromise our Christian values when watching television, attending movies or even telling a dirty joke? Certainly, we all make mistakes. But God doesn’t want us to compromise the Christian values He has given us.


When the Lord calls us out of the world to serve Him, most of us walk away from behaviors that we are not proud of. Sadly, many people claiming to be Christians either continue in the old ways, or fall back into those lives. Those compromises never work out well. In fact, when we compromise the Lord’s calling on our lives, we are no better off than a baby cut in half! Are there compromises in your Christian walk? Turn around and take a step back in God’s direction!


For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.
2 Peter 2:20