Little Gods of Compromise

In todays reading in Costly Grace by Ion Walker there was one brief statement that has stuck with me, "little gods of compromise". My mind flooded with thoughts of this as I continued to read my morning devotionals. When I am struck by something such as this, it becomes the subject of the blog. Generally thoughts begin to flood my head, images of people that this would apply to and then words that I would write to relate to them this day.

"Little gods of compromise." Stop and close your eyes for a second and without any context to the statement, imagine some "little gods of compromise". Go ahead, I will wait.

Now if you were like me many images came to mind during that brief time. The first thing was an image of God, the God that we all have an inherant knowledge of. The God that created heaven and earth. The God that knows every hair on my head, and yours. You may have seen in your minds eye the commercial image of Him or just a vague shadow surounded by light but I almost guarentee you that you thought of God. I did this because immediately I began to think of the "little gods" and the mind needs to make a comparison to something. So what did you start thinking of with the "little gods"? What were the images that your mind thought of in that moment that I gave you to reflect? For me it was not some munchkin god. It was not any sort of living thing at all. The images that came into my mind were material things, computers, Ipods, money, alcohol, tobacco. It was also the excuses we use to justify all of the things in our lives that are not the "Big God". Too busy, work, that we don't have need for it, that there is nothing wrong with our behavior, or anger, or coldness. All of these things, material or not, are the "little gods" of compromise.

So what, you non believers may say. Who cares if I have things in my life that I enjoy having? Who cares if I like to look at porn, drink until I am drunk, sit for hours on a computer by and enjoy my alone time? It is not hurting anybody. You are wrong in that it hurts you. Have you ever asked yourself why yo have such an afinity to these "little gods"? Now believers, you know as well as I do that we share the same "little gods" as non believers but we have some different ones. How about why we don't go to church or small group regularly? Why we can't or won't wittness to our neighbors? Why we don't make righteous stands for what we say we believe in? Is fear a "little god"?

See, these "little gods" are the things that keep you away from the One God, the One God that we all thought about when I asked you to think about the statement above. We all have them but we set them up as the rational answer for why we can not truly have a relationship with the Creator. These things in our lives are what keeps us away from Him fully. Like in the parable of the Rich Young Ruler it was His money that filled his heart a little more then Jesus Christ did. Maybe for you it is your favorite television show, or skiing. Something came to mind when you thought about it. We are called to give our hearts to God. To stand and worship Him. To have fellowship with Him. Anything that takes you from that is causing you to fall short of His glory.

When you compromise for that relationship with something else, when you place something between you and Him then you have created a "little god". Something just a little more important then Him. I will end with this. The more I look at things in my life the more I see how satan can use them to create a gap between me and God. It is not that I have to throw everything away but what I do have to do is realize when I should put it aside, relize when it has taken hold of me in a negative way. All things are gifts from God and all things can be used for His glory. If our heart is set on Him, if we are being truly honest with ourselves and listening to the Spirit, then we will know when these "little gods" have caused us to compromise our "Big God".

Lord, thank you for all of the things in my life, the accomplishments, the material things, children and wife. May none of these become "little gods" that I use to compromise you and the relationship I have with you. May those that don't know you also see their "little gods", their excuses for their dishonesty. May they also find their relationship with you and remove the compromise that they have created. Amen.