We do a lot of our grocery shopping with the Walmart app, where you pick what you want, and they bring it out to your car. I love this because I can grocery shop for things I want that Adessa doesn't buy. But anyway, at Walmart, if you order their brand of an item and it is out of stock, they replace it with the name brand for the same price. So, occasionally, we strike it rich with name-brand canned corn or name-brand cheese. But for the most part, we settle for the less expensive store-brand items.
In my family, we grew up eating generic brands. Most of the groceries we buy today are store brands, not name-brand items. Most of the time, you really can't tell the difference. Most things taste the same as the name brand does.
However, there are a few items where you can tell a difference.
For instance, Adessa hates generic paper towels. She says they fall apart right away. Generic Oreos aren't the same, either.
The one thing I insist we have the name brand of is ketchup. I hate generic ketchup. Adessa and I always get into discussions about why she buys generic ketchup.
Why am I telling you all about my groceries? TMI, right?
I bring it up because I wonder if we, as believers, are too often settling for a generic walk with God instead of going for the real deal. I am personally fine with settling for second best with groceries, but I NEVER want to settle for second best in my relationship with God.
I want a genuine blue, dyed-in-the-wool, strong, on-fire relationship with Him. I want the same for you.
But it is possible to settle for second best. It is a trap way too many Christians are falling into in their walk with God.
What do I mean?
Too often, we, as believers, are substituting God's ways and pursuing the world's ways. We put culture above kingdom living. We take spiritual shortcuts. We are compromising with sin and falling into bondage. We are playing with sin but expecting it not to affect our walk with God. But it does affect us.
The church today is being weakened by compromise. We need to stop playing around with sin and the world. I see it too much on social media: people watching stuff they shouldn't watch, going places they have no business going, doing things they shouldn't be doing, drinking things they shouldn't be drinking, and entertaining stuff they shouldn't be entertaining.
I recently saw a quote that I loved. It said, "The early church wanted to know 'What must I do to be saved’… Today's church asks, ‘What can I do and still be saved?'"
I don't want to do anything that would interfere with God's blessing, favor, or anointing on my life. No compromise is worth that. None.
We are still called to be different.
We are still called to live for God and show the world what it means to be a Christian.
We are called to be a light in a dark place, not just blend in with the darkness, hoping the world will like us and want to be with us.
Again, it goes back to knowing what the Word of God says. Jesus, Peter, Paul, John, and so many other authors of the Bible lay out clearly what's expected of a believer. Yes, they discuss grace, but they always follow the discussion of grace with the requirements of living a pure life before God. Grace is freedom from sin, not freedom to sin.
We all need to look inward at ourselves.
What areas of compromise have moved into our lives?
What are we doing now that we wouldn't have done 15 years ago? What changed?
If you stay on your current path, how deep into sin will you be, and how much compromise will you be tolerating?
Be honest with yourself.
Here's the most crucial question: Do you want to change and gain freedom?
The truth is that generic ketchup and cereal don't matter, but generic Christianity has eternal consequences.
Let's not compromise and settle for the world's ways. Let's go for God's best, hold our standards high, and be the men of God we are called to be.
Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.
Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.
For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.
And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him…So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:1-7, 11, NLT)
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