When Comfort Becomes a Master

When Comfort Becomes a Master

Sometimes it’s dangerous to find ourselves being too comfortable in our life. May sound strange because most of us spend a great deal of life trying to become more comfortable. We want financial stability, peaceful homes, easier schedules, fewer problems, better health, and less stress. None of those things are wrong by themselves. In fact, many of them are blessings. But blessings can quietly become our masters. Comfort becomes dangerous when it starts deciding what we will obey, what we will sacrifice, what we will avoid, and how far we are willing to follow God. It becomes dangerous when our first question is no longer, “What is right?” but, “What will this cost me?” Jesus never hid the cost of discipleship. In Luke 9:23, He said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” That is not the language of convenience. That is not a call to follow God only when the path is easy, socially acceptable, emotionally pleasant, or personally beneficial. Jesus calls for denial of self. Daily. Not once or occasionally. And that is where comfort often exposes us. A comfortable life can make obedience feel extreme. It can make sacrifice feel unreasonable. It can make spiritual discipline feel inconvenient. It can make service feel like an interruption and tedious. It can make evangelism feel awkward. It can make repentance feel too costly. Over time, we can begin to build a version of Christianity that fits neatly around the life we already wanted. We want Jesus, but not discomfort. We want grace, but not transformation. We want faith, but not anything that disrupts our routines, habits, plans, or preferences. That is not a new temptation. In Mark 10, a rich young ruler came to Jesus with what seemed like a sincere question: “What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” He had kept commandments and lived respectably. But Jesus exposed the thing that had his heart. He told him to sell what he had, give to the poor, and follow Him. The man went away sorrowful because he had great possessions. The tragedy of that story is not that he had possessions. The tragedy is that his possessions had him. That is the danger of comfort. It does not always look like rebellion. Sometimes it looks respectable, responsible, normal and/or successful. But underneath it all, it may be quietly training the heart to say no to God whenever obedience threatens the ease of life.

So, we should ask ourselves honestly: What would be hard for God to ask of me? Would it be hard for Him to ask for my time? My money? My pride? My habits? My entertainment? My relationships? My future plans? My willingness to forgive? My willingness to confess sin? My willingness to serve when no one notices? Those questions matter because the thing we refuse to surrender often reveals the thing we trust more than God. Matthew 6:21 says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Our treasure is not just money. It is whatever we protect most carefully. Whatever we fear losing most deeply. Whatever we organize our life around. For many people, comfort has become treasure. We protect our schedules from inconvenience. We protect our pride from correction. We protect our pleasures from conviction. We protect our plans from surrender. We protect our peace from people who need us. But Christianity was never meant to be lived as a carefully managed life of personal ease. Paul writes in Romans 12:1, “Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” A living sacrifice does not get to remain untouched. A living sacrifice is placed before God and says, “Use me as You will.” That kind of surrender is difficult because comfort teaches us to preserve ourselves. Jesus teaches us to offer ourselves. And yet, this is where real life is found. The world says comfort is the goal. Jesus says faithfulness is the goal. The world says avoid pain at all costs. Jesus says some things are worth suffering for. The world says protect yourself. Jesus says lose your life for His sake and you will find it. This does not mean Christians should seek hardship for its own sake. There is no virtue in making life unnecessarily miserable. But we should be deeply concerned if our faith only functions when it does not cost us anything. A faith that never sacrifices is not being exercised. A faith that never obeys when it is hard is not being tested. A faith that always chooses convenience over conviction may not be faith at all, but preference dressed in religious language. Hebrews 12:1 tells us to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us.” Not every weight is sinful in itself. Some weights are simply things that slow us down. Things that make us sluggish. Things that keep us from running faithfully. Comfort can become one of those weights. Too much ease can make us spiritually soft. Too much convenience can make us impatient with service. Too much entertainment can make prayer feel boring. Too much self-focus can make love feel burdensome.

 So, what do we do? We begin by being honest before God. We ask Him to show us where comfort has more influence than conviction in our lives. We examine the places where obedience feels negotiable. We pay attention to the excuses we keep making. Then we take small steps of surrender. Serve when it is inconvenient. Give when you would rather keep. Confess when your pride tells you to hide. Forgive when bitterness feels easier. Open God’s word and pray when your mind wants noise. Say yes to God before comfort has time to argue. The Christian life is not about proving how strong we are. It is about trusting that God is worth more than whatever obedience may cost us. Jesus says come Him, and He will give you rest. He did not say we ourselves should seek to find our own rest before coming to Him or even after we have come to Him.  And if we have Him, we have something far better than ease. We have a Savior who is worthy of our whole lives. So perhaps the question is not, “Is my life comfortable?” Perhaps the better question is, “Has comfort become my master?” Because if comfort is leading us, we will always stop where sacrifice begins. 

-  John Wells

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Patience is the strength of the weak,
impatience is the weakness of the strong.

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