“Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” -C.S Lewis
Growing up, I went to church with my family every week. I learned about Jesus from a young age, and I never questioned that he is our Lord and savior. Had you have asked me if I was a Christian at that point, I would have absolutely said yes and I really did think I was. To me, pretty much everyone was. In fact, I don't even think I knew anyone that wasn't a Christian. We all went to church and said the occasional prayer and that's what Christianity is, right? Wrong. And it wasn't until the summer going into my freshman year of high school did I realize just how wrong that is.
If you ask me now, I would tell you that I truly became a Christian the summer before ninth grade. By that, I mean that that's when I gave up my life to the Lord and started following him (and yes, I have had my ups and downs since then). I went from believing everything I had learned in church with my head to believing it with my heart. I stopped being a fan and started being a follower. There's a big difference. So as I have grown over the years, God has revealed more and more to me about our mission as believers here on earth, and I felt the need to speak up about what living for the Lord really looks like.
*Disclaimer* I am speaking to myself in this article too. I am not perfectly obedient to God's plan for my life, nor am I trying to present myself as such.
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”And he said to him,“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22: 36-40 ESV
Love God.
In Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples that our greatest commandment is to love God with our whole heart and soul. So, as obvious as it sounds, a Christian should love God. Jesus is not talking about the same love that we have towards Chipotle or Starbucks, he's talking about love as a verb. When you love someone, you do things for them. You spend time with them. You tell people about them. You give yourself up for them because you want to. When you love God, you want to follow His commandments. You receive joy and peace from Him because you are in a mutual loving relationship with Him. But similarly to any earthly relationship, you still have to put in the work. You have to spend time with Him. You have to seek Him, like He seeks you (Matthew 6:33). We all know from experience that a one-sided relationship can't go anywhere. For a better look at how to love God with all of your heart, take a look at the way Paul lived. Or Peter. Or any of the disciples. Loving God with all of your heart and soul transforms your entire life.
Loving God does not mean that you call yourself a Christian, but you really only go to church on Christmas and Easter. It does not mean that you follow Him only to the edge of your comfort zone. It does not mean that you pray every once in a while, subconsciously checking off a list in your mind of Christian behaviors to complete. To love God you have to know Him. You have to be in a constant relationship with Him. The same is said for loving a family member, friend or spouse. Why would the qualifications be different when it comes to Our Maker?
"There is no such thing as comfortable Christianity. So let me be clear right now, the Spirit did not come down so we could stay seated. The Spirit did not come down so we could stay complacent. The spirit did not come down so we could say Kumbaya. The Holy Spirit came down so we could…change the world for Jesus." - Samuel Rodriguez
If your life doesn't reflect Jesus, then I gently want to ask you, do you really love God? If you don't spend time with Him, getting to know Him, talking about Him, how can you love Him? For Christmas, my parents gave me a Hydroflask. If you don't know what those are, they are basically water bottles that keep your drink super cold or super hot for 24 hours. I was obsessed with my Hydroflask. I told everyone I talked to about them and that they had to buy one. Later, it occurred to me that I was spreading the gospel of Hydroflasks more than the very Gospel that saved my life. It just proved to me that when you love something, you want to tell everyone about it so that they can receive the same joy that you do from it. I know, it's a stupid analogy because I'm comparing Almighty God to a water bottle, but it's essentially the same concept. We become so distracted by what the world has to offer us, that we justify putting God in a little box. We settle for a life of comfort simply because that's what society has taught us to do, and it's easier. But that's not what Christianity is supposed to look like. Loving God with everything inside of us changes the way we live, and every commandment that He gives us falls under fully loving Him.
Love Others.
This is where the "comfortable Christian" is really tested. First of all, you can't love God without loving others. Once again, Jesus is talking about love as an action. By loving others, we should care about their ultimate destination, which is either Heaven or Hell. From a Christian standpoint, the most loving thing you could ever do for someone is to share the Gospel with them, in hopes of saving them from an eternity in Hell. And that's our ultimate mission here on Earth. Another way to look at it is like this: as people that believe that Christ died for our sins, we really have no business on Earth anymore. We know that we are going to Heaven, so we might as well go already, right? This is almost true. The reason God keeps us on Earth after salvation is to make disciples. If we all poofed up to Heaven upon giving our faith to Jesus, there would be no one on Earth to spread the Gospel to non-believers. So, because God is keeping us here, we should be urgently loving people because it really is urgent. Anyone's life could end at any moment, and God could use you to save a life through Jesus Christ.
But...
Sharing the Gospel is uncomfortable. It's awkward. It's offensive. I get that and I completely agree. But you can't let these excuses prevent you from building God's Kingdom. By not sharing the Gospel with someone just because you are nervous, you are basically saying that their salvation is not as important as your personal comfort, and that is exactly what Satan wants you to believe. Often times, when you love and serve people with a joyful heart, you don't even have to say anything for them to notice something different about you. By truly loving God, your life will look different and people will wonder what you have that they don't. A pastor at my church once explained it like this: As believers, we have the best gift in the entire world. We can give it away to as many people as we want, and we can still keep it for ourselves at the same time. So, why wouldn't we give it away to everyone we meet?
“But God doesn't call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn't come through.” - Francis Chan, "Crazy Love"
You may have noticed that when Jesus tells his disciples what the two greatest commandments are, he leaves out the part about going to a great college, having lots of money, a hot boyfriend or girlfriend and the best wardrobe. That's because although none of those things are necessarily bad, they are so trivial in the span of eternity. God calls us to love Him with everything within us and to love others as ourself. Beyond these two, nothing else really matters.
Where does "comfortable Christianity" root from?
Let's say that there is a wooden chair that looks neither extremely stable nor extremely flimsy. You may say that you believe that the chair is built well and will hold you, but you won't sit in it. Is this true faith? If you truly believed that the chair is capable of holding you, then you would sit in it. It's the same thing when it comes to God. "Comfortable Christianity" is rooted in the underlying doubt that God is good. If you truly believed that He is good and able to do all things, you would believe that His commandments are good, and obey them. When you truly believe that God is good, you want to obey his commandments, and you receive joy from doing so.
There are too many people who claim Christianity, but they won't sit in the chair. There are too many people in the church who just aren't getting what Jesus says to be the two greatest commandments. Too many people say that they follow Jesus, but are far more concerned with wealth, success and other secondary things that do not and cannot compare with the riches found in the Gospel. We need to rise up and radically love Our Creator and His creations. There is no more important earthly mission. Don't be a "comfortable Christian" because you're missing out on the life that God has planned for you, and you might not even be a Christian at all.
“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth." Revelation 3:15-16 ESV
Comfortable Christian: Someone that identifies as a Christian, but nothing in their life reflects that. They probably go to church and bless their food occasionally, but their relationship with God is no deeper than surface level and only present when things are easy. They can also be described as a "lukewarm Christian." They believe that God exists, but they do not follow His commandments nor allow Him to control their lives. There is no fruit in their lives that should be present after salvation.
