VICTORY OVER COMPROMISE

• Compromise is a concept which is actually considered a virtue in our culture. We are encouraged to “strike a good bargain,” and “meet in the middle.”

• Although there are times when such is justified, in matters of faith, compromise generally leads only to defeat.

OUR ENEMY WILL NEVER GIVE!

• Therefore, compromise for the Christian, is not an option, and MUST be overcome!

1.THE EASY WAY, IS NEVER

THE VICTORIOUS WAY!

-“Compromise is simply changing the question to fit the answer!”

• Often we are like electricity, and follow the course of least resistance. Such action destroys the purpose of what we are and what we do!

• But victory will require an unyielding faith, the knowledge that WITH GOD at our side we will see it through.

Romans 8:37-39

(39) neither height nor depth, nor anything else

in all creation, will be able to separate us

from the Love of God that is in Christ

Jesus our Lord.”

2. COMPROMISE IS BETRAYAL!

- To “ water down” our faith, is

to dilute the importance of

Christ in our lives. God would

not have us, if we would not

WHOLE-HEARTEDLY have Him!

• Simply put, it is matter of ownership. If we would own Him, one day, He will neither forget us.

Matthew 10:32-33

(32)“ Whoever acknowledges me before men, I

will also acknowledge him before my Father

in heaven. cont.

(33) But whoever disowns me before

men, I will disown him before my

Father in heaven.”

(15) “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold

nor hot. I wish you were either one or the

other!

(16) So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my

mouth.”

- Quite simply, we must DECIDE to be

unshakeable! We must choose to do

the RIGHT thing each and every day of

our lives, regardless of ANY circumstance.

Joshua 24:15

“But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you,

then choose for yourselves this day whom you will

serve, whether the gods your forefathers served

beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in

whose land you are living. But as for me and my

household, we will serve the LORD."

4.DEDICATION COMES BECAUSE
OF LOVING GOD

Mark 12:29-30

(29 ) "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this:

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

(30) Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with

all your soul and with all your mind and with all your

strength.'

• I want to say this morning that for us to be the people we are intended to be, if we are to have victory over com- promise and experience life as God intends, we need to love God.

• Hear that again- ‘WE NEED TO LOVE HIM’. It is part of God’s plan that we love him with everything in us and that we live out of that love. That’s when we are fully alive- that’s when we know life to the full.

• It is in loving God that we KNOW HIM and that we DISCOVER THE LIFE we had been unconsciously seeking and trying to find thru the TRIVIAL.

• Someone has written “Only God himself is completely and utterly sufficient to fulfill the will and longing of our souls. Nothing else can. The soul, when it is restored by grace, is made wholly sufficient to comprehend him fully by love.”

Ephesians 3:14-19

(14) “For this reason I kneel before the Father,

(15) from whom his whole family in heaven and on

earth derives its name.

(16) I pray that out of his glorious riches he may

strengthen you with power through his Spirit in

your inner being,” cont.

(17) so that Christ may dwell in your hearts

through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted

and established in love,

(18) may have power, together with all the saints,

to grasp how wide and long and high and deep

is the love of Christ, cont.

(19) and to know this love that surpasses

knowledge--that you may be filled to the

measure of all the fullness of God.”

Matthew 5:6

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for Righteousness for the will be filled”.

WE ARE MADE TO LOVE GOD

• We desperately need to love God and the struggle for some of us is that our hunger for God has faded.

• We remember what it felt like, but we don’t know how to get it back.

• Some of us need a

‘HUNGER FOR A HUNGER FOR GOD’

• The real danger of not loving God is that we end up practicing religious behavior without passion or joy.

• We begin to become more and more like Pharisees.

• We find compromise EASY if God and our love for him is not central in our lives.

Psalms 42 :1

“As the deer pants for streams of water,

so my soul pants for you, O God. ‘

• If we are to choose Christ, it means we are to choose uncompromising dedication, which requires constant training of our hearts!

AND FOCUS ON OUR

LOVE FOR GOD