Into the Fire

Why the emerging need to make people who visit church “comfortable”? The whole experience for an unbeliever is uncomfortable. And rightly so. So we offer/sell them a cup of espresso, a latte, a Chai Tea, to take into the sanctuary so they can experience that coffee shop casual invitation to God? Save it for Starbucks.

The gospel requires them to admit they have no shot of reaching a place called heaven in their current states of mind and heart conditions. In fact, the gospel tells them they are sinners, born into their state of depravity, that anything previously done which they might have considered “good” or “benevolent” or even “righteous” is considered to be as filthy as the most foul of dirty rags to this God—just in case they seriously want the truth of the matter. The gospel offers them eternal life if they will surrender theirs to die to their self-righteous, self-fulfilling, self-centered, self-absorbed ways. The gospel teaches them that sacrifice will be imminent and difficult. Trouble apparent. Persecution probable. Ridicule inevitable. Hip hip hooray: let’s all get saved!

It’s not up to man to make them feel “at home” with this Truth. That job belongs to the Holy Spirit’s convicting power. Christians are supposed to give them the opportunity to choose God’s way or the highway to hell. And if Christians make it comfy cozy and full of frills, they’re not doing the lost any favors. Nor are they essentially revealing truth. While the walk toward Jesus is strangely difficult due to the warfare for the soul, the relief in embracing Him equals nothing humanity can provide. But at the same time that very relief can be short-lived because of the pitfalls of serving Christ in a fallen world where we are tempted day in and day out to fail in that service, to deny what He has done for us by our very countenance, activities, judgments, attitudes, and lifestyles. And fail we do. Witnessed by others or not, we fail. To gloss over these failures is to add to them. To diminish our pension for succumbing to temptations is to welcome more of the same.

To mislead the lost by tolerating sin in order to make them “comfortable” is to dismiss grace and the essence of the brutal death suffered on that ugly cross for our and their behalf. To belittle resurrection power, the conviction by, and the grieving and quenching of the Spirit of God is to present a half-hearted pseudo gospel which anyone might believe but it will not save. The instruction to “crucify” oneself on a daily basis is not attractive or even desirable, but it is the necessary crux of becoming a Christian. It’s giving up our man-made selves and becoming the God-made creation we were intended to be. It is a choice. One that can’t be taken lightly. Once made in favor of Christianity, it’s a commitment to an ever-increasing refining process which is often painful and always humbling. The perks are heavenly, but in the physical realm often invisible. Faith comes hard sometimes. Stark. Simple. Huge. Necessary. Difficult for human nature to yield.

Any Christian worth his salt will tell you it’s hard. But he will also tell you there is nothing else equal to the relationship with the mysterious God who prepares hearts, calls people to choose His Son, and allows a part of Himself to dwell within human hearts in supernatural occupation to give divine counsel. Yeah? Crazy to actuate in mindful matters. Wonderful to experience in actuality.

No one wins the worldly person to Jesus by being exactly like him in conduct and lifestyle. That goes for the church atmosphere as well. If stepping inside the “holy” place feels like walking into a coffee shop, maybe it is like that. And if it is, there should be cause for concern. Church is where the church meets with God and submits to Him, not to each other. It’s not about being “comfortable” and it never has been except where God is absent and pleasing man resides in full control recognizable by the exercise of the “traditions of men”.

God help us all. In the Name of Jesus by the power of the Spirit. Amen.