This message is for the believer who knows they belong to God yet still chooses—intentionally and knowingly—to step into sin for the sake of momentary pleasure. You call it “every now and then” because it feels rare, but you still allow yourself to smoke, indulge in sexual immorality, or flirt with tarot cards and palm readings because the thrill of “knowing your future” feels harmless. You excuse bitterness, envy, recreational drugs, drunkenness, or consuming ungodly content because you’ve convinced yourself it’s not that serious.
You may reason, “God knows my heart; I’m only human.” You remind yourself that your spirit is willing but your flesh is weak. You even point to Paul’s words in Romans 7:15—“The things I want to do, I don’t do; the things I don’t want to do, I sometimes find myself doing.” And with that, you quietly conclude: If Paul struggled, who am I to resist slipping up once in a while?
The Bible was never meant to be taken out of context or treated like a buffet where we pick and choose verses to excuse our disobedience. If you keep reading Romans 7:17–25, Paul isn’t giving believers a free pass—he’s exposing the brutal war between his desire to honor God and the sin still present in his flesh. He delights in God’s law, yet he feels the pull of sin waging war against his mind, dragging him toward what he hates. In anguish he cries, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me?”—and immediately declares the only answer: “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Paul’s confession doesn’t normalize sin; it unmasks it. He wasn’t shrugging his shoulders at weakness—he was running to Christ for rescue, strength, and victory.
Romans 6:1–2 says, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”
Have you reached the place where your response to sin is, like Paul’s, “God forbid”? Have you come to the point where sin no longer feels like a temptation you can bargain with, but something you reject immediately—because you’ve learned the flesh is not your friend? If you have not, as Apostle Arome Osayi teaches, Satan will continue to entice you with what is in your heart. That desire will put you in a position where you are no longer capable of balanced thinking. It provokes your will to make a choice you did not process. Your defense protocol is bypassed, and you become a victim of something you are wiser than.
“Once in a while” is a crack that Satan will always use as leverage.
You may think it’s harmless, but what you’re practicing is iniquity—an ongoing, willful rebellion against God. It reveals a heart lacking the fear of the Lord. Psalm 19:7–9 says, “The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever.” When that fear truly lives in you, it becomes the foundation of wisdom and discernment. But when sin becomes a casual pastime, wisdom is absent. You’ve chosen friendship with the world—and James warns that friendship with the world is enmity with God (James 4:4). This is why David prayed in Psalm 19:13:
“Keep Your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression.”
David knew that compromise rarely happens all at once. It begins subtly. Small permissions granted to the flesh, tiny crossings of what once felt like a clear boundary. Little by little, the line blurs, and before you know it, you are standing far beyond the place you once swore you would never go.
In John 17:14–16, Jesus said His followers are not of this world and prayed that the Father would protect them from the evil one while they remain in it. If you are a child of God, you belong to a higher Kingdom. Yet every compromise opens the door to the very evil God seeks to guard you from. The desire to fit in, be accepted, or appear “normal” draws you into the enemy’s web. In Genesis 4:7, the Lord warned Cain:
“If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin crouches at your door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
The danger of “once in a while” is that it slowly trains you to accept sin. Instead of mastering it, you allow it to master you.
Join us for Part II as we examine some compromising choices believers make and what Scripture says about them.
