“As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good.” – 2 Thessalonians 3:13
Scripture reading: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-18
Have you been in any compromising situations recently? Sounds like an easy question to answer, doesn’t it? Inevitably there is push-back when I ask it. If you are hired to work 8 hours, but you spend 20 minutes of the time you’re clocked in on your favorite social media platform, you don’t give that time back to your boss. Or you’re asked to run an item to the school office, and instead of going quickly, you socialize with a friend or two along the way. Or you start eating candy and learn that it is something your buddy swiped from the store when the cashier wasn’t looking.
There are many potentially compromising situations that believers can find themselves in. It is tempting to ignore such compromises. You might reason, why sweat the small stuff? There is no such thing as small stuff. If you waste 20 minutes a day at work, by the end of a month you’ve cost your boss a full day’s pay. Worse even than that, 20 minutes can soon stretch out to forty, because there were no apparent consequences to your previous wasted time.
Dear brothers and sisters, using each day to its fullest is hard work. Believers know our lives are lived in the blink of an eye, and then there is the judgment seat of God. How you occupy yourself when you’re at work, school, leisure, church, or volunteering, matters. People watch you and notice if you are someone who readily compromises, or if you are a person of integrity.
Suggestions for prayer
First ask God to examine your attitude towards compromise and then ask the Spirit to reveal what areas in your life might be prone to compromises.
Rev. Richard T. Vander Vaart and his wife Carolyn are now in their seventh year living in Moncton, NB. with Redemption Prison Ministry as a pastor in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church of Canada. Get this devotional delivered directly to your phone each day via our RP App. This devotional is made available by the Nearer To God Devotional team, who also make available in print, for purchase, at NTGDevotional.com