God's Not In The Comfort Business!

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”

John 3:16 NLT

For God so loved the world that He gave...Well what did God give? God gave His son Jesus. He sacrificed His most prized possession yet, there’s more to this sacrifice beyond a physical death. God sacrificed His Son’s comfort to save the world. Jesus came from Heaven, paradise, what we long for and hope for, to live like us. He came to dwell in an uncomfortable body, deal with misfit disciples, religious haters, a corrupt political system, and a simplistic lifestyle with just His basic needs met. Jesus didn’t live in a palace, He left the palace to come to earth. He came to a world and was surrounded by the physical and spiritual stench of people. He was surrounded by the lepers, the crippled, the demon possessed, the blind, deaf, and mute, the outcasts, the low lifes, and those whose reputation could affect His. It was all the people we sometimes walk around and pretend to not see. All of that, because it was part of the Father’s plan to save the world. Temporary discomfort for the eternal comfort of brining us with Him, back to the Father.

Somehow we’ve adopted this theory that the ultimate life is a comfortable life. God is just here to bless us. God is no longer an omnipotent Creator but, a passive aggressive genie. Somehow the American dream is synonymous with God’s dream and plan. Let me be blunt. God’s plan has always been reconciliation. From the moment He sacrificed the animal in the garden to cover sin, to His own Son sacrificed on a cross to cleanse our sin. Reconciliation of His creation was the plan.

If we embrace and believe John 3:16 then we have to embrace that God will allow us to be uncomfortable for the purpose of salvation. If it means me losing something allows a soul to be gained do you think God would pass that up? If going through a season of poverty meant I was equipped to reach the impoverished, wasn’t my poverty justified? I’m not saying this to debate if God makes us rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy. What I’m emphasizing is is that God is not in the comfort business! He is in the soul business!

Look through the scriptures and see God telling us to find joy in the trials and pain, find peace in times of trouble, and to be content no matter our circumstances. If accepting Christ means a free ride to Comfort Town then these scriptures are unnecessary and useless. Nevertheless if we believe that God is strategic and never haphazard then those scriptures are in the Book for a specific and strategic reason.

The heart of God is to leave the 99 for the 1. He doesn’t want anyone left behind. If we truly believe we are the vessels He wants to use to bring back the 1, then we have to be willing to be uncomfortable, go to uncomfortable places, and do uncomfortable things. I say uncomfortable things not sinful things. Nonetheless it’s uncomfortable to carry out the great commission because, at some point we’ll have to do something that denies ourselves.

In closing, God loves you. Yet, He loves EVERYONE just as much as He loves you. We can’t be content in the mansion while our neighbor goes to hell. For God so loved the world He gave His only Son and with that He gave up His comfort. We need to allow ourselves to be uncomfortable for the sake of souls