Balance Without Compromise

The ability to balance oneself, takes paitence, and practice. Have you have ever tried hopping on one foot? When you are unable to balance yourself, there is a tendancy to move rapidly in one direction or another, possibly injuring yourself, or causing damage to something nearby. Our first instinct when failing to balance ourselves, is to compromise the balancing act and reach for something nearby, to the right or to the left, righting ourselves, and hopefully steady ourselves without sustaining an injury. The balancing act of a believer is not always an easy task to undertake. We seemed to be pulled and influenced from all directions. I do not write as one who has it all figured, but understand by looking at the life of Jesus, that He understood balance. In the New Testament, it was Jesus, who taught us to pray, to fast, to seek the will of the Father, but He also taught us how to have a balanced life, and He was able to do it without compromising His mission. Jesus ministered to the masses, but more intimately, He impacted the lives of individuals! He was a guest at the house of Zacchhaeus in (Luke 19), and it did not sit well with those that were observing the ministry of Jesus. Jesus was eating dinner with a Sinner! But Jesus, had the ability to socialize, have dinner with Zacchaeus, and obviously minister to him in a way, that would change the heart of Zacchaeus, without compromising who He was or His mission. In Mark 2, Jesus is again seen eating with "publicans and sinners", and the scribes are appalled at his blatant disregard for proper religeous etiquette! What a great teacher Jesus was, who taught by example, and then reminded us, that while we are in the world, we are not of the world. We can reach our world without compromising truth! When you feel like you are losing your balance, steady yourself by "reaching for the rock and not the cactus" (an oriiginal thought lol), it's a lot less painful! When our unchurched friends and aquaintences leave the dinner table, they should have a unexplainable desire to compromise their positions, not cause us to compromise ours. We can reach our world, one person at a time, with God's help. Jesus' parting comment to Zacchaeus was that He came "to seek and to save that which was lost"(Luke 19:10) The Apostle Paul reminds of us of our obligation with balance, in I Corinthians 9:22 "To the weak, became i as weak, that i might gain the weak: i am made all things to all men, that i might by all means, save some. Go ahead and Hop!