Healthy compromise occurs when we can “give in” without sacrificing our values and beliefs. A different kind of compromise leads us to abandon sound ideas or standards, leaving us morally and spiritually bankrupt. We live in a world full of temptations that urges us to compromise our godly values. When we choose to compromise, we pay a price, even though it may not seem immediately apparent to us or to other people. Satan wants us to believe the lie that no one gets hurt when we compromise our core values, but that lie has cost people their jobs and ministries, children their innocence, and at times it has cost people their very lives.

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Have you ever noticed that Jesus often does things that we don’t expect him to do? Take the stories we read in Mark 7:24-37, for example. He does two things that we don’t expect him to do.

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The writer of Song of Songs uses a series of images and poems to describe God’s love for us. They represent the joys, the ups and downs, even painful longing when apart. It is a relationship between two people who love each other. In the case of Christians, it is a relationship between us and God. It is a contrast to references comparing an adulterous woman to Israel’s idolatry. It shows the longing, joys and sorrows that occur when we are separated from God. Both humans and God experience these feelings.

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All of us have certain core traditions and beliefs that are important to us. They make us who we are, they define our own behaviours and the way we think other people should behave. That is what lies behind the passage from Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23.

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Instead of tempting us to do evil things, God gives us good gifts. The phrase “Father of lights” reminds us of God’s unchanging nature. The God who put the stars, sun and moon in their places faithfully presides over our lives and provides everything good, and we must thank him for these gifts. As the old hymn which we often sing on Thanksgiving Sunday says, “All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above…”

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The choice to accept Jesus is a difficult one. Godly people will still face difficulties in life, including persecution. God’s ways are not our ways, and that is why the Gospel message is hard to accept. It is costly because in order for us to accept Christ’s death and resurrection as the way to eternal life, we also have to experience our own form of death and resurrection. We have to die to our worldly way of life and rise to a new life in Christ. There are times when our faith in Christ will be harder than we expected. Each of us must answer the question, “Where can we go?” Jesus promises us eternal life. We face troubles in this life here on earth, but they pale in comparison to the joy of Christ revealed in us as mentioned in Romans 8:18.

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There is a price to pay when we follow Jesus. He calls us to give up our worldly life with all of its sinful pleasures and follow a life that will lead to even greater pleasures in heaven. For most of us, that is not an easy choice to make. We have grown comfortable in our daily lives. They are like a pair of shoes that we have broken in. They feel so darn good, and the life we are leading feels so darn good. Most of us don’t like change. We get set in our ways. We get stuck in the rut of daily life, and we don’t want to get out.

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When we receive Christ, His Spirit takes up residence in the core of our being, giving us an internal power that we never had before and transforming our hearts from hateful and rebellion to loving and obedient. Our hearts control our words and actions. It isn’t easy for us to accept ourselves; to love and be loved, to feel worthwhile to ourselves and others. It is a time of overwhelming grace when we accept the fact that God knows us thoroughly and loves us thoroughly.

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We need to receive Jesus’ spiritual food on a regular basis, just like the Israelites needed to receive the manna and quail from God every day. Without it, we will always be spiritually hungry. We can’t get enough spiritual food by going to church only at Christmas or Easter or on special occasions such as weddings, funerals, baptisms, or confirmations. Our spiritual hunger can only be satisfied by regularly studying God’s Word and applying it to our lives. This means regular attendance at Sunday worship services.

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A few years ago there was program on the Investigation Discovery Channel called “I Almost Got Away with It”. The story of David and Bathsheba would have been a perfect one for that show, especially the part where the prophet Nathan confronted David. David thought that he had committed the perfect crime by having an affair with Bathsheba and covering it up by killing her husband. Unfortunately, he was caught by the one true, perfect, all-seeing and all-knowing God. David forgot that God sees everything that his people do. It reminds me of the line from the Christmas song “Santa Clause Comes to Town” that goes like this:

He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows when you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake.

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