The Cost of Compromise

Caught between choosing what is right and choosing what is popular, the temptation to compromise can be overwhelming. In the sterile environment of a class, it is easy to take a firm position on ethical and moral issues. At the dinner table, surrounded by supportive family and friends, boldness comes easy. And perhaps nothing is easier than chastising someone on television, who lives on the other side of the continent and who we will never meet. In all of these situations, we may be a stalwart of uncompromising morality, a fierce defender of the faith, a bastille of all that is good and true.
However, it is the moment is which we have something to loose that we are tempted to waiver. When our best friend commits the same sin, that just last week we crucified some celebrity for, the cost of taking a stand stares us in the face. Then we realize (maybe for the first time) that commitment to the Lord requires sacrifice. In the post-modern age where the only acceptable absolute is that there is no absolutes-which is of course self-contradicting, but let’s not confuse its adherents with the facts—it is extremely unpopular to take a stand on anything. If we oppose the homosexual lifestyle, then we are homophobes. If we teach that Jesus is the only way to heaven, then we are closed minded and intolerant toward other religions. Of course, in America, when we hear the cry for religious tolerance, it means that all faiths, except evangelical Christianity, are to be accepted, which is of course a form of intolerance, which leads us to ask how can the tolerant practice intolerance in order to further tolerance—but again I am, perhaps unfairly, appealing to reason and common sense which apparently are irrelevant to some of the prevailing ideas of our day and time.
Many things may be uncertain today, but persecution for holding an unwavering commitment to God’s truth is as certain as death and taxes. Hold to the faith regardless of your crowd and you may loose your job, your position, future opportunities, income, and in some cases your life—hence, the appeal of compromise. But compromise only provides temporary relief from the tension between the ways of God and the ways of the world, and like a lie that must be maintained with new lies, compromise quickly grows into a reoccurring necessity, for some it will becomes a lifestyle.
Yet, no matter what the cost of taking a stand maybe in any given scenario, it pales in comparison to the cost of compromise. When we compromise what we believe we loose respect and credibility among those who share our convictions. We disappoint the Lord, and may even forfeit some opportunity that would have been available to us, had we been a person of character and integrity. And last, but not least, we lose self-respect and dignity, and the way the economy is going these days that is all some of us have left.
It is difficult to take a stand when so much is at stake to lose, but what profit is it if you gain the whole world and yet forfeit your own soul? Character is never forged in a rose garden, but in the fire of life’s difficulties. The only way to truly know what is inside of a person is to see what comes out when they are under pressure. The next time you face the temptation to compromise, consider the consequences.