Last Updated on August 2, 2014
Some Christians try so hard to make being a Christian seem easy to those around them. But the concept of easy Christianity may be doing a disservice to other believers…and God Himself.
The human race is always looking for the easy way to do things. If anything can legitimately be chalked up to “human nature,”  our search for simplicity may be it. Look at how many billions of dollars have been spent in research and development to find ways to reduce the amount effort required to accomplish a variety of tasks.
Unfortunately, that’s even true in matters of faith.
The Ten Commandments were given to Moses by God because His people spent too much time fighting over more detailed, complicated laws. By the time Jesus came along, ten were then whittled down to just two:
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
—Matthew 22:36-40
The problem is, even when you narrow Christianity to just two basic commandments, things get complicated. Being a Christian is supposed to change who you are and how you treat others, how you live your life, how you prioritize, how you treat others, how you treat your loved ones and how committed you are to following Christ.
“There is a mindset today that if people believe in God and do good works they are going to Heaven,” Billy Graham said in an interview for Christianity Today last year. “It should not be surprising if people believe easily in a God who makes no demands, but this is not the God of the Bible. Satan has cleverly misled people by whispering that they can believe in Jesus Christ without being changed, but this is the Devil’s lie.”
In a recent article at Relevant Magazine, Stephen Mattson points out the problem with Christians who pretend that following Christ is such a simple task:
We assume that if people find out things aren’t all right—that our lives are actually chaotic, messy and out of control, that our relationships are broken, our feelings hurt and that we’re filled with worry and pain—they’ll get scared away. So we hide these things with the mistaken belief that we’re glorifying God—protecting Him from bad press.
But in doing so, we dishonor God and set ourselves up for failure.
I’d love to tell those of you who may be reading this at a place where you’re looking for the kind of God who’ll instantly solve all of your problems just moments after you commit to following Him.
That God isn’t the God of the Bible, either.
Christians may well have an easier way to cope with the challenges and failures that come into our lives if we’re following God. But we’re not immune to those problems.
We need to stop pretending otherwise. Doing so is almost like false advertising. Doing so sets ourselves up to fail, but even worse, it sets up those around us, particularly new Christians who are looking for answers that we may not have found (no matter what kind of façade we may hide behind).
How is that serving anyone?