Powerful principles. Practical application.

It’s astonishing isn’t it, how a plague can sweep the land unnoticed?
Such is the epidemic of comfortable Christianity.

Subtract the miracles. Disregard supernatural healing. Extricate the necessity and work of the Holy Spirit. Remove anything that demands sacrifice or change on my part. Make me the sole object and beneficiary of my religion. Make God a vending machine to quench my transient thirsts.

And leave me with a perfectly worthless, but entirely cozy, Christianity. A people-pleasing, unobtrusive morality that offends no one (and helps no one). A predictable religion where I am in control and nothing drastic happens or takes me by surprise. A religion so indistinguishable that I cannot rightly differentiate it from anyone else’s, thereby avoiding conflicts and differences of opinion.

Let me have so high a view of myself it makes the gulf the cross had to span rather small and insignificant. I do not mind being entertained with tales of adventurous souls who sacrificed all. How I envy and admire their faith! But dare not replicate it. For my castle of comfort is too secure. And my grip on it has become its grip on me.

It’s not church attendance to me, it’s conscience easement. It’s not a children’s program, it’s a babysitter. It’s not a life purpose, it’s a moral hobby. It’s not a divinely inerrant manuscript, it’s a good storybook. I don’t have to do what the Bible requires, I merely have to do what I think the Bible requires. And if I don’t read it, I can’t tell the difference.

I don’t want to be a soldier in a war. I want to be a vacationer on a cruise. I don’t want a gun and a mission. I want a lemonade and a hammock. Play music I like. Entertain me with your talent. Inspire and coddle me with an inspirational speech. That is all my “Christian” appetite requires. Make me self-centered. Make me self-righteous. Make me deceived. Make me satisfied. Make me… an American Christian.

Give me comfort, not cost. Give me self-confidence, not Holy Spirit reliance. Give me humanized, watered-down, politically correct, convenient religion.

Give me…Easy Jesus.