When Kingdom Endeavors Become "Too Big to Fail"

When our personal, family, church, or professional efforts to advance the kingdom of God become "too big to fail," - i.e., we are in so deep the thought of altering or correcting course seems catastrophic - it is viscerally tempting to compromise our doctrinal convictions and ethics to maintain those ministries by any means necessary. We might close our ears to counselors calling us to biblical fidelity. We might convince ourselves that we can handle it and that others just don’t understand the nature of the work we're doing or how it has to be done. We feel pressured by how much time, energy, and perhaps even money - concerning which we so quickly forget our faith - has already been invested; we focus myopically on how much good our undertaking will accomplish for God’s glory if we can just see it through. But as we compromise our Savior's standards in our kingdom endeavors, we fail to recognize that we are succumbing to the enemy’s seductive invitation: “all this I will give you if you will just fall down and worship me." We fail to see, or fail to admit, that we've been trying to serve two masters (Matthew 4-6). So, how do we preemptively sensitize and fortify our Christian consciences against Satan's calls to compromise? And how, when we’ve already yielded to them, do we find courage to correct course and face the consequences?

The editors of Tabletalk magazine asked me to write an article on the theme "Conscience in a Compromising Age." In it, I engage these issues, drawing primarily from Matthew's account of Jesus's temptation in the wilderness and the "Sermon on the Mount." I hope it's a help as we all seek to serve our Savior in a way that magnifies his character and truly extends his kingdom. The article can be found here.