God expects us to build spiritually mature, godly character in this life, becoming ever more like Him (Matthew 5:48). We build eternal, godly character by remaining faithful to what is right in spite of pulls to the contrary. We resist the temptation to do things we know we shouldn't. We live by faith that God will give us the strength to endure whatever trials we face in this life. But when we compromise we tear down that character. We give in. Every time we give in, we find it that much harder to resist giving in the next time we face temptation.
One of the insidious things about compromise is that it spreads. If we get away with something once, we find it much easier to try it again next time. Compromise grows like a cancer. It comes on slowly, then spreads. Before you know it you can be in a fight for your spiritual life. That is why God says that, if our actions aren't done in faith or according to faith, if they violate our conscience, we are sinning.
We need to be sure that what we do is out of faith and confidence that it is right and acceptable to God—or not do it. We need to be sure our motives are right and our conscience remains clear in everything we do. For this reason it is vital that we properly educate our conscience so that it is in accordance with God's Word, the Bible. It is not within our natural ability to discern right and wrong (Jeremiah 10:23). We are to learn God's ways that define right and wrong for us (Hebrews 5:14).
God wants us to live within the boundaries and standards He has set for us, to change our values, attitudes, thoughts and lives so they are in line with His standards, not our own. The process of conversion can be simply defined as replacing our standards, values and thoughts with God's standards, values and thoughts
