Don't Get Too Comfortable

Don’t Get Too Comfortable 

It’s pretty simple to see that our culture loves comfort. A vast array of the products we consume are made with that very thought in mind - our comfort. We buy our shoes with it. We buy our clothes with it. Our mattresses. Our vehicles. Politicians campaign with promises to make policies that will, in turn, make our lives more… comfortable. 

But where is our comfort when it comes to Christianity? Where is that promise made in Scripture? Where are the Christian campaigns preaching comfort in Christ? Where are the theological ideas that will lead to comfort? If we’re seriously wondering where comfort is in Christianity, then we’ve seriously got Christianity all wrong. 

Jesus didn’t die to make you comfortable, but He did die so He could send you the Comforter. In fact, one of the last things He tells his disciples before He ascends is that He has to go so that the Helper and Comforter can be sent. And we need the Comforter because we’re called to carry a cross, and that’s not very comfortable. 

And I must say, carrying one (a cross) is easier than laying yourself down on one, and allowing people you love to drive massive nails into your wrists and feet just to give them the opportunity of eternity in heaven. 

If you love comfort more than you love the cross, do you love Christ? Jesus said pick up your cross daily and follow me. Every day is a new cross to bear. A new burden to endure. A new suffering that will strengthen. Christ told us to carry our cross… not get hung up on it. 

Maybe we have difficulty understanding comfort vs discomfort because we don’t understand suffering. Suffering has a way of hardening your beliefs. If you believe working out and lifting weights is beneficial for your health, then you’ll endure the workouts that hurt and make you suffer… or you’ll do CrossFit. If you believe in some existential threat to our planet or our liberties and you’re willing to get arrested by protesting such a position, you may harden your stance even further or even dig your heels in further because of the suffering you endured for it. And if you believe in your heart that Christ died and rose again, then to live is Christ and to die is gain. Therefore, the suffering that is endured is worth it in the end. 

Christ calls us to the Great Commission, and that cannot be accomplished on the couch. It is accomplished by backpacking our cross for the cause of Christ. And no one understood this more (possibly) than Paul. Not only was he acquainted with suffering, he often welcomed it because he knew his mission in reaching the lost for Christ. He knew that suffering and persecution and hardship was part of the price that is paid to ascend the hill of Calvary. 

So why is comfort such a bad thing? I’m glad you asked. Comfort creates complacency. Comfort keeps you on the sidelines instead of in the game. Complacency keeps you in the stands instead of on the sidelines. Both keep you out of the game. Both render you useless for the game. Christianity isn’t for spectators (somewhere in there is a pun about couch potatoes putting the “taters” in “spec-taters”).

Conforming creates comfort. Comfort creates complacency. Complacency is a silent, slow killer. You can have/choose comfort or you can have/choose growth. Most times, you don’t get both because complacency is a killer of growth. And, as Christians, we’re called to be transformed, not conformed. Which is interesting because either way, we are being formed. We just get to choose how and who we are being formed. 

One final thought on this… God can’t stretch you in your comfort zone.

We weren’t called to comfort, but we were promised a Comforter.