Paul Grenelle
“I just want to live my life, go to work, love my family, and serve God!” I exclaimed as I laid in bed tired and exasperated. I was mentally spent for the day. I was tired of reading of a pandemic and, more so, the responses to the pandemic by some in government and in the general public. I was tired of reading of riots breaking out yet again, and this time, over a seemingly justifiable shooting by police officers. I was tired of reading the presidential race polls and the promises of a democratic leader that seems insistent on limiting the way I worship and live. I was just tired enough for the filter of my mind to be bypassed so that the abundance of my heart could show itself. The thing about being indwelled with the Holy Spirit is that He is with you everywhere and all the time. Sunday may be the only time that we think to worship God, but God is not limited by time or space. Thus, right before bed, God sovereignly decided to have a little discipleship moment with me. This time the wisdom came from the not too infrequent source of my wife. There was just enough of a pause to allow a sigh from me to complete my thought when my wife began her spirit filled response. “I was reminded from the book I’m reading that we need to be grateful that God doesn’t allow us to be comfortable in this life.” She was right. Class dismissed.
Comfort could be the single greatest assassin of effective Christians in this world. Too many of us are trying to be victorious over Satan and his demons when we aren’t even victorious in getting off the couch. God only wants weekend warriors to fight those spiritual battles right? We read Job and think demonic oppression is going to be Satan taking away all of our possessions and family when in the United States the greater threat looks like a 3-2 house with 2 cars and a 401k. These things aren’t bad until we look to protect them to the detriment of advancing the Kingdom of God. Indeed, when we look at Scripture, we see that some of the greatest prophets of God had seemingly nothing in earthly goods. Elijah had to be fed by God, John the Baptist ate wild honey, and Paul seemed to only have a coat and some books to his name. And yet, when you have nothing, then there is nothing to take and you become a force to reckon with. Now God also used rich people such as Abraham, Job, and others because He is God and can use anyone. But the mere fact that I am compelled to make that concession in order to avoid the pushback is symptomatic of our sickness. Put more eloquently by the artist Andy Mineo:
Nobody told me you could die like this
Nobody told me you could die from bliss, yeah
We never saw it comin’
Corrupted by the comfort we love.
God gave us a sword and we wield a remote. God gave us a shield and we hold a chicken wing or a venti skinny yada yada. God says make disciples and we make Tik Tok videos. God says we are in a Spiritual war and we treat it like a round table discussion where no one is wrong and we all just want to get along. And while we all sit around and think about our next epic weekend we have planned, the enemy is gaining headway at a rate that makes General Rommel’s Blitzkrieg seem like a sandy saunter. The US church is in desperate need of boot camp. We fear dying in battle, all the while, sitting on the couch dying of spiritual heart disease.
The truth is life is looking to get a lot more uncomfortable for Christians in the United States. This isn’t my dispensational premillennial roots talking but rather a simple evaluation of the culture of today. We have a huge cultural war that is being waged, even though many of us haven’t engaged in the fight yet. Critical theories have taken hold of the strategic institution of education, entertainment, media, and social media and are now marching to gain executive power through political and even ecclesiastical influence. For too long we have relegated these theories and those pushing them to the “minor leagues” but now we find ourselves late to the fight and with a steep learning curve to even know where the bullets are coming from . And make no mistake about it, they are going for the throat. Read up on the Equality Act promised to be signed within 100 days of a Biden administration. Read about Ibram Kendi, heavily financed by Twitter, and his plan to set up an Antiracist Constitutional Amendment that makes discrimination against white people justified and morally necessary. Still don’t believe me? Then look up Proposition 16 currently on the ballot of California. They want to repeal affirmative action so they can discriminate against the supposed hegemony of whiteness and heteronormative people until equity, which is equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity, is reached. And they have churches, and Christian education at all levels squarely in their sites. They aren’t shy in their declarations because for too long we have stayed comfortable in our young, restless and reformed bubbles and whistled past the graveyard. With the drop of a gavel a judge in Cincinnati , yes that’s the United States, strips parents of their child because they won’t allow her to undergo gender transformation and we are busy wondering if our church has a good coffee bar.
And dear friend, don’t hear me wrongly. I know my Bible and I know how the story ends. I know Christ comes back and makes this right. My fear isn’t that we will lose, my fear is that we won’t even engage. My fear isn’t that there will be casualties, my fear is that you think gaining the whole world is worth your soul. My fear is that you have become so comfortable that you may have lost your moral gumption to fight. My fear is that you don’t know that your comfort has caused you to act cowardly. My fear is that our pulpits continue to support our comfort addiction instead of preaching passages like Revelation 21:8 and warning that the cowardly end up in the lake of fire. My fear is that even those who are truly saved will never know the true joy of getting out of their comfort zones and standing for Christ. So before we can slay dragons we must slay the idol of comfort.
Let us then stimulate each other toward love and good deeds. Let us stimulate each other to train and fight. Instead of asking about the latest TV series we’ve binged watched, let us ask about the latest sermon series that we binged. Instead of asking if we saw that game yesterday, let us ask what we are reading in our quiet times. Instead of talking about our last vacation, let us talk about how God is changing our hearts and minds. Because we were never told to pick up our lattes and follow Christ, we weren’t told to pick up our 401k and follow him and we weren’t told to pick up our nice quiet life out of the spotlight and follow Him. We were told to pick up our cross, our uncomfortable instrument of tortuous death, and follow Him.
