JDL - Direction Thirty-nine - A Faith of Compromise

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6 (ESV))

So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 10:32 (ESV))


At a ministerial alliance luncheon put on by the local school district, the minister who was asked to say grace made the statement prior to his prayer, “Since we are all Christians here I will pray in Jesus’ name.” My concern was that if we were not all Christians (and how did he know, since he could not look in our hearts) would he have shied away from witnessing his faith and confessing and acknowledging his faith, especially before those who needed to hear such a confession?

Jesus says, “I am the way and the Truth and the life . . . ” There is only one way to heaven and that is not through compromise, nor allowance for false beliefs. When or if we live a life of compromise, what we are confessing is that Jesus is a way, one way among many ways. Jesus says that He is the way, the only way and that apart from Him there is only the way to destruction.

And what about our confession of Him or our lack of confession? Jesus says, if we acknowledge Him, He will acknowledge us, but if we do not acknowledge Him, neither will He acknowledge us (see also, Luke 12:8). Thus, would the pastor mentioned above not acknowledge Jesus before the others who needed to hear his confession of Jesus, and what would that mean for Jesus’ acknowledgment of him?

Perhaps the tolerance of our society has gotten too much out of hand. Certainly we are to be tolerant of others; that is how we Christians get along. However, we are never to be tolerant of those things of which our Lord is not tolerant. Jesus says there is only one way to heaven; that means there is only one way. To be tolerant or even to give any inclination that we believe there might be another way is to deny Christ and His Word! And it would mean that we do not give a damn about the eternal well being of our friend.

If we have a friend who is abusing drugs, we would say that the loving thing to do would be to hold them accountable, to tell them that what their doing is hurting themselves, and we would do all within our power to get them to change their way. How much more important is one’s spiritual well being. Apart from Jesus there is only eternal spiritual death (hell). If we have a friend who is following after some other god or idol, religion or philosophy, sect or cult, we will not want to sit around and let them think that it is okay. And even if they are very sincere in their religion or very religious in their worship, that does not make it right. Jesus says He is the only way. How unloving of us to allow our friend to continue down the road to eternal damnation.

On the other hand, how loving it is to call our friend to the truth of God and His Word. How loving it is to show our friend the right way, the only way, the way of salvation. And be assured, that just as our friend who is abusing drugs will not want to be called to account but will be angry with us and call us all sorts of names as they go through withdrawal, in the same way our religious friend will not be happy and will probably call us all sorts of names even pointing out our intolerance and suggesting that we are not being very “Christian” (according to their warped definition of Christianity) in our concern for them.

We can be no better a Christian and we can love others no better than to make a clear confession of the one way to eternal life through faith in Jesus alone for salvation. A Jesus-directed life is one in which He will direct and lead us to always acknowledge and confess Him so that others might be brought to faith as well.

Think About
Have you ever tried to hide the fact that you were a Christian because you were afraid of the response of your friends or peers? Jesus was not afraid to give His life for yours.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank You for standing up for me and taking my place in punishment for my sins in Your Son, Jesus. Forgive me when I falter in my own faith so that my life denies You. Help keep me strong to always bear witness of the faith in my heart which You have given to me, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.