No Compromise

I Samuel 15:22
.........Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice.

The enemy of anyone in recovery is compromise.
The great trade off, if you will, is the weight that tips the scales in the favor of the addiction.
Such is the reason we need people around us that we can talk with and share with when the struggles come our way. Some call it a support group, but I like to think of it as family. People that understand what we are going through and what the battle is really like. We don't need a bunch of "yes" people around us who will coddle us and give into us when we try to manipulate them. 

In my own life, I have people who will tell me what I really don't want to hear. Why don't I want to hear what they have to say to me? Because they are speaking truth and there is a part inside me that doesn't want to be confronted with it when I know I am in the wrong. But this is the place of real life and growth when you have folks around you that will not let you get away with anything.

When we were out there running wild, we didn't compromise anything did we?
We traded off whatever needed to be traded off to get what we wanted. We rejected friends and family in order to chase the next high. The tug and pull of the old life does not give up easily, and such is the ground that compromise comes from. I do not want to give the impression that addiction is such a monster that it cannot be defeated. But the defeat begins with a heart that is ready to surrender. As a wise man once told me, "When you're sick and tired of being sick and tired, then you're ready to start this journey to a new life."

So why the thought of obeying better than a sacrifice. Well, the act of obedience comes from the heart. It starts in the heart as God speaks of what we are to do. We apply it to our daily life and we walk it out, no questions asked. The act of sacrifice comes from the brain and seeks to give the appearance of obedience. Going to a meeting with no intention of doing anything needed for your recovery is a prime example. In other words, I'm going to a meeting to fulfill an obligation I have to the legal system. I'm doing the right thing, but I have no intention of changing. A sacrifice that has no substance or weight behind it to add to the obedience that should have been there to start with.  Get it?

I see people all the time who are going through the motions of recovery without any intent to change at all. I also see people going through the motions of church without any intent to change at all. Compromising the truth of God, in both instances, to perpetuate a false front and reality to those around us. How sad is this? It will end in failure and destruction. 

Luke 9:23 is the passage where Jesus tells the people (My paraphrase), "If you want to follow me...if you want to go where I am going...If you want what I have to offer....then deny yourself (Or deny your "self") don't listen to that old voice when it comes to you trying to cut a deal so it can gain control again....take up your cross (remember that the only way for you to have new life is for the old one to die) and then follow me.

Sometimes we want to skip all the "denying of self" and that "Cross" thing and just get to the following part. Impossible when we carry around the old nature that hasn't been brought under the gift of salvation and the blood of Christ. "There you go with that 'blood' thing!" Can't help it. The blood of Jesus that was shed some 2000 + years ago is the cornerstone of all recovery. It incorporates more than just the absence of drugs and alcohol..it shatters the old way of living and rockets you into a new dimension of life that you never thought you could ever experience. That's my Jesus!
Think on these things.

God on you...
mb