Last week, I posted the following from John Piper’s book, Reading the Bible Supernaturally:
“The measure of our longing for true life with Christ is the amount of worldly comfort we are willing to give up to get it …”
It’s a good quote but as I thought more about it, I wondered if we really understand the relationship between giving up comfort and gaining Christ. In the apostolic age, Christians lived on the fringes of acceptable society and their faith made crossing that border nearly impossible. They were seen as strange and so far out of the mainstream that people just looked down on them, almost like we would view members of a strange cult today. In other words, they gave up much in this world to gain Christ … acceptance by the wider society, opportunities in the commercial world, etc.
As I think about Christians, broadly speaking, in America today, we look very much like the mainstream. Sure, we go to church on Sunday and don’t watch some of the movies that others watch, but what have we really given up? We live in the same houses, drive the same cars, eat at the same restaurants, play with the same toys (kids and adults), take the same vacations, etc.
Continue reading “What does giving up comfort have to do with true longing for Christ?”