The Cost of Compromise

Today we're diving into something that might feel small on the surface,

but carries deep spiritual consequences over time.

Compromise.

Have you ever told yourself it's just this one time or it's not that big a deal?

I know I have.

And I also know that I learned the hard way that what starts out as a small concession can lead to spiritual drift,

disconnection, and even destruction if we're not careful.

In this episode,

I'm sharing a deeply personal story of how a single decision nearly derailed my life and how God's grace brought me back.

We'll talk about what it means to truly live for Christ.

We'll also talk about the power of discernment and why spiritual vigilance isn't just helpful.

It's necessary.

If you're feeling tempted,

worn down, or just tired of constantly correcting course,

this episode is for you.

Welcome back to Born to be a Butterfly,

where we embrace healing and growth in Christ so we can experience true transformation.

My name is Nina Pajonis, and I pray that today's episode ministers to you.

Compromise doesn't usually start with something big.

It usually starts with what feels like a harmless exception,

something we tell ourselves is just for now or just this once.

We think to ourselves,

I know this isn't usually what I do,

but for today,

it's okay.

That's how compromise creeps in until one decision becomes a habit,

and then the habit begins to shape who we are.

That's exactly what happened to me.

What started as a small concession led to a pattern that consumed me.

I want to share that part of my story with you. Not to glorify the struggle,

but to point to the grace of God that pulled me out.

I always enjoyed drinking,

but I didn't actually turn the corner to alcoholism until my latter twenties.

In my latter twenties, I started to drink more heavily.

And then one day,

I made a decision.

Ultimately, it was a concession to drink during the day.

I lived alone in my apartment, and I thought to myself,

it's not like anybody's gonna know. It's just me,

and I'm only gonna do it this one time.

I'll never forget the day,

and I'll never forget the feeling. Because I knew I shouldn't do it,

but I did it anyway.

I told myself I wouldn't make it a habit.

I was deeply depressed,

and in my weakness,

I convinced myself that I would only do it that one time,

that one day.

But the very next day,

I drank during the day again.

Then I told myself, okay, just one more day. Tomorrow's Sunday,

it's the weekend. I'll only do it this weekend. Not a big deal.

I told myself I've had a hard month. I deserve to let loose a little bit. I deserve to just escape from this horrible reality for a little bit.

The only problem was,

once I started escaping,

that's all I wanted to do.

The only boundary I had at that time was that I wouldn't drink during the day.

During the week,

if I was working,

I was sober.

But as soon as I got home from work,

I would drink.

And then every weekend, I started drinking during the day.

It didn't just stop with that one weekend.

It became a lifestyle. It became a life choice until it no longer felt like a choice.

Because before I knew it, I was in the throes of addiction. And I could barely restrain myself from grabbing that bottle first thing in the morning, every single morning that I got up,

work or not.

Like I said, I did have that boundary. And I made sure that I'd go to work sober. But I cannot tell you how hard that was.

It was excruciating.

When I didn't drink in the morning,

I had the shakes.

I was cranky, I was irritable. I was hungry for food, but not really.

It's not what I wanted. I wanted alcohol. My body wanted alcohol first thing, every single morning.

It was never used to that before.

It was always used to drinking in the evening, going out to a bar, going to a party, going to somebody's house,

going to dinner, having a glass of wine.

That's what it was accustomed to. And then I changed the rules. I said it was okay.

Let's do it during the day. Just this one time. It'll be okay. I'm in control.

No, I wasn't.

You're not in control if you're compromising.

That's literally the exact opposite of control.

But that's what I told myself.

That's what I did to convince myself that it was okay to compromise.

I'm going to refer to 1Peter5.8 NIV.

Be alert and of sober mind.

Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

We must remember that the enemy seeks to kill,

steal and destroy.

He will steal your peace,

your happiness,

your joy,

your motivation,

your dignity,

and your respect.

He will steal so many things if you give him the opportunity.

That's why vigilance is so important.

Because if we're not vigilant,

we cannot walk in victory.

Jesus declared victory.

And if we're closely connected to him doing the things that he wants us to do,

we too will be victorious.

But if we're not close to Christ,

we're in trouble.

We're in danger. And every time we concede to the flesh,

rather than surrender to the Spirit,

we will be drawn further and further away from our Savior.

We must surrender to the Spirit constantly.

That's what's going to keep us walking the righteous path with our Savior.

For example,

let's say I make a decision that I know is not of Christ and I do. We all do this sometimes.

We say to ourselves, it's not a big deal. Can't I just do what I want to do this one time?

It's just one little thing.

But all of a sudden, we're going down a road and we're walking alone.

It's like a fork in the road. And we decided to go left. And the Lord has gone right.

And he's saying to us, hey,

I'm over here.

I don't know where you're going.

I'm on the right side of the road. You're on the left side of the road.

There was a fork in the road,

but I did not take that left hand turn with you.

Left does not mean left for the Lord.

Right means righteous. And that's where I am. And you didn't go that way.

So whenever you want to come back,

this is the road that I'm on.

Come and follow me.

But if you're leading,

you don't need a Lord,

but you're certainly going to need a savior,

right?

We will need a Savior.

We'll be going down that road and one decision will seem like no big deal until we make another decision that seems like no big deal.

And then before we know it, we're making more and more decisions from a broken place. Because these decisions have been just leading us astray to the point that we get lost.

And maybe we don't even know where we are anymore.

And then we say we can't feel Christ because we've drifted so far away from Him.

And it's not that he left us, it's because we left Him.

And it all started with one small decision,

right?

The one that we told ourselves we deserved.

The one that we told ourselves was no big deal.

The one that we told ourselves we had every right to make.

That's how it all starts.

And these decisions that we make,

they're made from the flesh.

And the flesh is foolish. It is unworthy,

wise.

The Spirit,

however,

is a completely different story.

The Holy Spirit has an eternal perspective.

God has a Vision for the eternal and he knows what's best for us.

He alone knows the path that we need to take that will lead to eternal life with Him.

If we're being honest with ourselves,

we know at best we could see maybe a few feet in front of us.

And I mean that emotionally and spiritually and mentally, we don't know what's really going to happen in the future.

We have our best guess. I mean, we surmise some things from situations and such, but we don't know definitively.

We can't.

We're not all knowing.

But we do have an all knowing God living inside of us.

So why don't we listen and learn from Him?

Why do we fight with the Holy Spirit?

When we do that, we're just eroding our own faith.

The Holy Spirit is literally there to guide us. It's like a gps and we're saying, no, I know what roads I need to take and I know what to do and I don't need you.

Yes we do.

We do need the Spirit, we do need our Savior, we do need our Heavenly Father if we want to stay on the narrow road. And the narrow road is the only one that leads to life eternal with Christ.

If I want to walk through that narrow gate and meet him one day,

I need to follow him faithfully.

I've got to be steadfast. I've got to be diligent in my walk with him and vigilant because the enemy is trying to pull me off that path every day of my life.

He is out there prowling around it says it in scripture, I read it.

He prowls around like a lion looking to devour us.

He's looking to kill our relationship with our Savior.

We're not supposed to help him do it.

I'm going to Refer to Romans 12, 2 NIV.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world,

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is.

His good,

pleasing and perfect will.

When we make too many compromises,

it can result in negative consequences.

When we compromise too often,

we also become complacent,

which is not beneficial to our spiritual well being.

It's easy to think,

but if I pray enough,

if I go to church every Sunday,

that should be enough,

right?

But it's not.

What we ingest culturally from our society affects our relationship with Christ.

So for example,

the other day I was thinking to myself,

what am I ingesting?

And when I say ingesting, I mean what am I watching on tv? What am I listening to on the radio?

What am I doing with my spare time,

right?

For instance,

let's say I'm watching a show and there's a lot of drinking and sex outside of marriage and cursing and, I don't know,

just really crude jokes that are pretty distasteful.

Let's say I'm watching a show like that.

Do I really think it's not going to affect me?

I mean, I'm not saying that it's going to make me go out and do all of those things the next day. That's not what I'm saying.

But what I'm saying is it starts to blur the lines of what I think is appropriate and what I think is not appropriate.

Because I've made a small concession,

because I'm watching it, right?

I'm willingly watching it.

What I'm saying is we can choose to change the channel.

I could choose to change it and watch the Chosen instead of the Shining. You know what I mean?

We have choices all day long.

Little ones, big ones,

and little ones that add up over time become big ones.

They just do.

It was pretty early on in my walk with Christ that I realized I couldn't watch the same TV shows that I used to before I came back to Christ.

All of a sudden I was watching them and the Holy Spirit was like,

I don't like this.

This isn't of us.

It's not of Christ.

And if you're in him, you shouldn't be watching this.

Like, immediately I would feel convicted watching these shows.

I mean, there was even this one show that didn't have a lot in the way of nudity or sex or cursing or anything like that. But what they did do was they kept taking the Lord's name in vain.

I'm telling you right now.

It made me so uncomfortable. It made me angry.

I was like, that's my God you're talking about,

and that's not okay.

And I had to shut it down. I had to shut off the show. I would not watch. It didn't matter that I thought the storyline was interesting. Didn't matter that I enjoyed some of the characters.

It didn't matter.

That's what it was doing.

That's what it was saying. And. And I was like, oh, no,

no, no, no. I will not participate in this.

And I can't say that I'm not participating in something if I'm not removing myself from it.

We can't just say, oh, well, I didn't do it. I was just sitting there. It didn't mean anything. I wasn't, I wasn't actively engaging in it. I was just watching.

That's enough.

That's enough. That's participating because you didn't take yourself out of the situation because now you're surrounded by it.

You're surrounded by all that sin.

Do you think it's not going to find its way inside of you?

Do you think it's not going to eventually affect you?

You will be affected and not in a good way,

I assure you.

And I know that it's hard. I know it's like sometimes you just want to be like everybody else,

right?

You don't want to have to think about everything you're doing and everything you're saying. And you don't want to constantly have to self correct and be mindful of everything that's coming out of your mouth and every thought that you're thinking in your head.

I get it.

Trust me, I get it.

It's hard being on guard from the evil one all the time.

But we have to be.

I think of it this way.

When food is spoiled,

you don't eat it because you don't want to get food poisoning. You know you're going to get sick, right? If you eat something that's spoiled or rotten or filthy.

We know that,

so we won't do it.

But we see a program and it tells you right away, oh, there's graphic content, there's nudity, there's profanity.

You know, there's. I mean, it'll tell you everything.

And we say, ah, I'm an adult, I can handle it.

But it's not about whether we can do something,

it's about whether we should.

And these are the choices that we make every day.

Little choices,

but they add up.

Minutes become hours,

hours become days.

Days become weeks, weeks become months.

Before you know it, you've spent a lot of your spare time getting programmed by the world instead of staying in the Word.

And we give the enemy leverage.

We give him a foothold in our life,

which allows him to put a stronghold on our life.

Think about it.

When we do these things,

the enemy is saying, great,

you've already convinced yourself it's okay to compromise your morals.

Wonderful.

Now you're weaker.

Now you're less discerning.

Now when I suggest you do something sinful,

it's not going to seem so bad to you.

That's what he's saying.

We have to be disciplined.

We have to hold ourselves accountable for what we take in and for what we put out in the world.

We have to think about what we say before we say it. We've got to control ourselves. We've got to align our thoughts with Christ,

hold captive those thoughts that are not of him and that are of the world. Because we don't want ourselves going down that road mentally.

Because if I start going down that road mentally,

I'm going to go down it spiritually, I'm going to go down it emotionally. That's what's going to happen.

All of these things start in the mind before the behavior ever happens.

It starts in my mind.

It starts in your mind.

So we have to be disciplined in the way we are thinking,

in what we're ingesting,

in what we're creating in our world for ourselves and for others.

We have to be really,

really conscious about what we're doing as children of Christ.

Because if we're not conscientious,

we will compromise,

whether it is on purpose or accidentally.

And we can't afford to do it.

We really can't.

We have to be careful and stay close to our Savior because He is the One who keeps us safe when we surround ourselves with things that are pure and of the Lord.

Like reading the Bible on a regular basis or praying continuously to the Lord throughout the day, throughout the week,

making sure we're in constant communication with him, touching base with our cornerstone.

When we listen to worship music in our car and we're worshiping the Lord,

singing joyfully to him, rejoicing in the day that he has made.

I'm not telling you to take your hands off the wheels, ladies.

You know what I mean? Like, I know Carrie Underwood says, jesus, take the wheel. I get it. But we can't, like, literally do that.

So sing,

but keep your hands on the wheels. Okay.

And I know that that was a joke, right? I mean, it's okay to joke,

and I love to laugh,

but we do need to take this seriously.

When we are closer to Christ,

we're not as easily compromised or influenced.

During my walk with the Lord, I have found that I constantly return to John 3:30 and I even include it in my prayers.

It's a brief passage of Scripture,

yet it encompasses so much.

John says,

he must become greater,

I must become less.

We cannot truly grow in Christ unless we are making a concerted effort to be less of ourselves.

Whatever doesn't glorify the Lord needs to be disposed of,

and it needs to be replaced with the characteristics of Christ.

It's not an easy task, though,

is it? In fact, earlier today, I Found myself mentally clinging to a behavior that I knew wasn't of God.

I kept trying to tell myself that it was trivial, but the truth is that the acceptance of a small infraction will ultimately lead to greater ones.

I know that from my own personal experience.

And yet earlier today,

that's what my flesh wanted to do.

So I stopped myself and I said to myself,

oh, my gosh,

this is the episode I need to do.

Because we all struggle with this.

We all do.

You're not alone.

Every child of Christ has to have this conversation with themselves.

Every child of Christ has to confront themselves in the mirror and say,

what I used to do no longer works if I want to walk faithfully with the Lord.

When our actions keep confirming the words that come out of our mouths,

we know we're drawing closer and closer to Christ.

That's how we become better image bearers.

I can only bear his image better if people see more of him and less of me.

Right.

That's what John was saying.

So when I find myself in that place like I did today,

I remind myself that everything good in my life is from God and that everything good in me is of God.

When I remember all of his wondrous work in my story,

it enables me to stop clinging to things that are not of Christ.

And now I want to ask you a couple of questions.

Number one.

What small compromises have you been making in your daily life that may be slowly pulling you away from our Savior?

Take a moment and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal those things to you.

Ask him what seemingly harmless things might be quietly shaping your heart?

Number two.

Are you being spiritually vigilant or spiritually passive?

What does it look like for you to stay alert and rooted in God's truth,

even when the world offers what looks like an easier path?

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father,

thank you for your unwavering love and the truth found in your word.

Lord, we confess that it's easy to justify the small things,

the little compromises that seem harmless,

but slowly draw us away from you.

Help us to be vigilant.

Strengthen us to resist the enemy's schemes and to stay rooted in your spirit.

Create in us clean hearts, Lord.

Renew our minds.

Teach us to love what is holy and turn away from what is not.

When the world feels loud and tempting, help us to hear your still,

small voice guiding us back to the narrow road,

the road that leads to eternal life.

Help us to decrease so that you may increase.

In Jesus name we pray.

Amen.

If today's message spoke to you,

please share it with a friend and be sure to follow Born to be a Butterfly so you never miss an episode.

If you're ready to dive deeper into my story of healing and transformation,

get my book from Broke into Butterfly on Amazon.

If you have any questions or want to connect with me,

Send me a DM on Instagram @ Born to be a Butterfly or email me at ninapajonas@gmail.com. Until next time,

Remember,

the Lord can turn your wounds into wings.

You were born to be a butterfly.

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