In 2014, I wrote this line:
“Ask any invading army and they would agree: subtle compromise is always better than sudden captivity.”
I still think that is true.
Most people do not drift from God because of one dramatic decision. More often, it happens gradually. One small compromise. One season of neglect. One distraction that becomes a habit. One habit that becomes normal. One normal thing that quietly reshapes the soul.
And in 2026, I can't help but confess that I am a more 'worldy' person than I used to be in many, many ways. Some of it is prosperity, some of it..... fatigue. Some of it this techno-culture that offers many escapes.
Guinness’ warning about worldliness is not that Christians might suddenly stop believing everything. It is that we might continue saying the right things while slowly losing the distinctiveness that makes our witness meaningful.
Jesus said we are the salt of the earth. But He also warned that salt can lose its saltiness.
The question, then, is how do we live faithfully in the world without being absorbed by it?
That has always been a difficult balance. Some Christians become so comfortable in the world that there is almost no visible difference between their lives and the culture around them. Others respond by withdrawing so far from the world that they have very little meaningful contact with people who need the gospel.
Neither seems to fit the New Testament.
Paul addresses this tension in 1 Corinthians 5 when he reminds believers that avoiding immoral people altogether would require them to “go out of the world.” That is not the assignment. Christians are not called to disappear from the world, but neither are we called to be shaped by it.
That distinction matters.
One of the mistakes I mentioned back in 2014 is still a real problem. We often rail against sin outside the church while becoming strangely tolerant of sin inside our own hearts. We can be very alert to what is wrong “out there” and remarkably blind to what needs repentance “in here.”
Jesus warned about that too when He spoke about seeing the speck in someone else’s eye while ignoring the log in our own.
That passage has become more important to me over the years. Logs and specks are made of the same substance- what we rail against in others is usually much akin to us!
It does not mean we stop speaking truth. It means we speak it as people who are also under the authority of truth. The goal is not outrage. The goal is clarity, repentance, love, and faithfulness.
This is where Scripture becomes so important.
If we are going to stay awake in a world that constantly pulls us toward distraction and compromise, we need something stronger than instinct, personality, opinion, or cultural mood. We need the Word of God as true north.
One of the things I wrote in 2014 still feels accurate:
“Without the Bible, a believer has no hope of staying in between the ditches on both sides of the road.”
I might say it a little differently now, but the concern is the same. We cannot live by borrowed convictions forever. Listening to good preaching is helpful. Reading devotionals can be helpful. Christian podcasts and books may encourage us. But none of those can replace slow, honest, personal engagement with Scripture.
The Bible has a way of waking us up. It exposes what we have excused. It steadies what culture has unsettled. It corrects what our emotions have distorted.
And it reminds us that truth remains true even when it is no longer fashionable.
This also connects to something I mentioned yesterday about epistemology. Years ago, I spent time writing about how we know what we know. That may sound academic, but I think it is more important now than ever. We live in a time when people are flooded with information but often starved for wisdom. Social media multiplies misinformation, emotional reaction, and half-formed opinions at a speed previous generations could hardly have imagined.
So part of staying awake is learning to ask better questions.
Is this true?
How do I know?
Who benefits if I believe it?
What assumptions are shaping my reaction?
Does this line up with Scripture?
Those questions matter because a sleepy Christian is easily manipulated while a wakeful Christian learns to test what is plausible against what is true.
But staying awake is not merely intellectual. It is also relational and spiritual. Guinness keeps bringing the reader back to the reality that calling is lived before God and among people. That means worship matters. Fellowship matters. Confession matters. Evangelism matters. Serving others matters.
A Christian who is actively worshiping, praying, reading Scripture, loving people, and sharing the gospel is much harder (not impossible) to lull into spiritual sleep.
The world has always had its seductions. Comfort, pleasure, success, approval, distraction, and fear have been around a long time. The forms change, but the danger remains the same.
We begin loving things that cannot love us back- trusting voices that cannot save us.
So perhaps the question for today is fairly simple.
What is helping me stay awake?
And what is slowly putting me to sleep?
That may be worth thinking about as part of this June Tune-Up.
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