Our Modern-Day Conveniences and Comforts: an Obstacle to the Great Commission
Kroger click list, Amazon Prime delivery, Grubhub, grocery home deliveries are all things we have grown to love. By nature we love convenience. It makes our lives easier and for introverts like me, it helps you to avoid crowds and being surrounded by people that quite frankly you could go without being around. Is this a problem? Well like everything in this life in Christ we have to weigh our hearts and submit this to the examination of the Holy Spirit. As followers of the Way, we have been commissioned to GO and make disciples. Is it possible that when we surround ourselves with modern conveniences we hamper the spread of the gospel and effectively remove points of contact with the world? Does our affinity for modern conveniences take us out of the game?
I don’t really get out a lot but when I do have to go into a store, I get what I need and nothing more. Then I'm out. Yet the Holy Spirit has been impressing on me lately to take an interest in the state of the souls of the people I'm around daily. I love to work out at the gym. It’s pretty much my only hobby and there are people I see every morning that the Holy Spirit points out to me to pray for and look for an opportunity to share the gospel. This is being a light in this dark world as we GO.
This is not meant as a correction as if I look down on everyone else who is not fulfilling their duties as ambassadors, but I take part in this conviction to the glory of God.
When we look at the straight edge of Scripture we see how comfort, convenience, and just being content could hamper what God has commanded us to do. Acts 8 gives us a picture of this. The deacon Stephen had just been murdered and Saul was breathing out threats upon the followers of the Way. The Bible says that the believers began to scatter but amazingly as they scattered fleeing persecution they preached the gospel as they went. How many of us, under duress because of the gospel, would have preaching it at the forefront of our minds and on our tongues? Nevertheless, they went out and they preached. So, the gospel spread because the church became uncomfortable!
What was the result of the going out? Well, the Bible highlights how Phillip spread the Word resulting in the manifestation of God’s power throughout Samaria. Revival ensued. Phillip even had an encounter with an Ethiopian eunuch who had a prominent position in the court of Candace. It was a divine appointment to share the gospel with a ripe soul. Church history tells us that this eunuch was instrumental in the good news spreading throughout Ethiopia. This too was the result of the people of God forsaking convenience and being uncomfortable!
Second Timothy 3:1-4 has been a passage that I often find myself thinking deeply about, as I evaluate my conduct and life.
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (2 Timothy 3:1-2, 4 NASB).
A feature of the end times is that mankind will be lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God! This sounds a lot like the times in which we live.
Spurgeon once said :
“If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.”
May our hearts burn like never before for the lost and may we not allow convenience and comfort to rob us of points of contact as we GO with Him making disciples.
