Consequences of Compromise

What is the most dangerous and threatening enemies in the future of the Lord's Church? Many would suggest that the threat is embodied by politics, world chaos and external corruption. I submit to you that this threat lies not in the world but in the potential for internal implosion that we set up through our own spiritual apathy in dealing with those external factors. This carelessness sets in when we forget our own Christian purpose and identity.

When we forsake the original identity of the church that Christ established, we also forsake the salvation he prepared for it (Acts 2:47 & Mt. 5:19). When we live in pretense that we're following Christ while sowing destructive seeds of spiritual compromise for the future, we'll have our reward. However that reward will exist in the limits of the same pretense for which we sought to gain it (Mt. 6:2). When we downplay the value of scriptural knowledge while super-sizing our emotional appeal to the emptiness we've become, we become overzealous, underdeveloped souls of confusion (Rom. 10:2).

The Youth – the flame of the church – is affected just as extremely, if not more, when spiritual compromises such as the mechanical instruments in worship are made based on a lack of identity, knowledge, and true zeal. When we set a low standard for youth while passing them off as insignificant and unhelpful individuals, we'll end up with a dependent, complacent, apathetic group of young people who spend an overwhelming amount of their time making excuses (I Tim. 4:12). Christ's church wasn't built on excuses; it was built on faithfulness (Gal. 5:22).