CHRISTIANITY: COMFORTABLE OR COMFORTING?




Too many people today want church to be "comfortable." They demand it to be soothing, relaxing, inspiring, relevant, and easy on the mind and soul. A Christian writer by the name of J.I. Packer likened this to his first hot-tub experience; the water swirled around his shoulders and neck and relaxed his whole body. Jets of bubbles soothed and removed all tension. Does God intend Christianity to be a hot-tub experience, comfortable?

No, He intends it rather to be "comforting." For God describes this very emphasis in 2 Corinthians 1 as "God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share in abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too."

The Bible is clear and focused throughout that this suffering and comfort of Christ's that we believers' share is none other than His sacrificial death and resurrection for the forgiveness of our sins. This is to make us "comforted" that our sins are forgiven in Christ crucified and raised for them, rather than make us "comfortable." We are never to be comfortable with our sinful condition which persists even in the believer (see Romans 7).

While many today want and demand that Christianity be comfortable to them, it cannot be. The Apostle Paul writing to the Pastor Timothy in 2 Timothy 4 says that this is the very sad and false condition many will find themselves in Christianity in the last days (verse 3-4). But not for real pastors and their flocks, Paul goes on in verse 2-5. It has to be "comforting" that sinners are forgiven their sins, not "comfortable."