Day 109/365- 1 Samuel 28:6-7

"Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen"

He asked the Lord what he should do, but the Lord refused to answer him, either by dreams or by sacred lots or by the prophets. Saul then said to his advisers, "Find a woman who is a medium, so I can go and ask her what to do." His advisers replied, "There is a medium at Endor." (1 Samuel 28:6, 7 NLT)

Oh how the mighty have fallen. I bet if you told Saul that toward the end of his life the Lord wouldn't respond anymore to his enquiries & he would consult a medium instead, he would call you crazy. He didn't start out his rule with the end in mind. He didn't start out thinking about the day that he would reach the lowest of the low. He just got there, one step at a time.

This is how compromise works. We don't come to the alter & tell our spouse, "Til affair do us part." We say, "Til death do us part" because we intend to stay together, forever. When we are planning for the reception, the rehearsal dinner, the flowers, clothes, the guests, the music, etc., we never plan for the affair as well. We never plan for things to fall apart. In any area of our lives, we don't intend to hit rock bottom. We don't intend to lose the things most important to us. We always intend for the best.

So, what happens? What goes wrong? How do we end up like Saul here? In a place we never should be or never thought we would be, doing what we thought we would never be doing?

One word: compromise. One decision at a time, one thought at a time, one moral compromise at a time. Just like Saul didn't decide on the front end to consult a medium & spouses don't decide on the wedding day to have an affair, so we also don't plan to compromise. It simply happens. One step, one decisions, one poor choice at a time.

How do we avoid such compromise? We see in Saul's life what not to do that gives us some good insight into what to do.

First, we must commit ourselves to obedience to God. Saul blurred the line of obedience with God. He did what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it. He was content with half-hearted obedience. He was perfectly happy to do some of what the Lord says but not all of it.

Second, we must commit ourselves to communion with God. Never once do we see Saul really draw near to God. We see David's name all over the Psalms & his walk with God gives us great hope & inspiration for our walk with God. We don't see this from Saul. He seems to have a business relationship with God but not much of an intimate one. He & God are not family like David & God.

If we are going to avoid compromise we must have a third component, repentance. Repentance is key. Saul's repentance included "I sinned but." Anytime we begin to repent with "but" we know we have a repentance that needs to be repented from. Whenever we sin against God we need to admit it & ask for forgiveness while doing whatever we can to avoid that sin again. We must trust the blood of Jesus that covers us & move on. Repentance is not just something that happens at salvation. We must repent daily. We must repent not so much from what we do but who we are.

Obey, commune, repent. These are crucial in our fight to avoid compromise. How are we doing?