Let’s face it we all want to live comfortable lives. Our human nature is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. But as Christians God often will want to take us out of our comfort zones in order to use us to build up his kingdom. We read in (2 Corinthians 4:17): “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” You see God will often use trials, which are the enemy of comfort, to allow us to turn our difficulties in life into opportunities to glorify His name.
If we allow ourselves to get too comfortable in life we will often miss wonderful opportunities to be used by God to be a blessing to others. As Pastor Rick Warren once said: “God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.”1 But in order to build our character God will often have to put us through the crucible of affliction. As the psalmist states: “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes.”
Character building implies that we let God’s Word mold us into being conformed more into the likeness of Jesus and often means that we must learn to sacrifice our comfort to serve others. And the more we are willing to sacrifice our comfort, the more God will be able to use us to bless others and glorify His name in the process. Serving God often means we must leave our comfort zones behind in order to put God’s agenda ahead of our own. When we do this God will richly bless us with incomparable spiritual blessings and the great joy of knowing that we are being used by Him to bless others.
I also like what Pastor Warren said that: “God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.” When we sacrifice our own comfort to be a blessing to others we often will find that we transform happiness into something much better – joy! Living for Jesus means we become servants of Christ who are willing to sacrifice comfort and happiness in exchange for character and holiness. And when we live for Jesus we will experience something far better than comfort and that is the knowledge that we are doing things that please our Savior. And the closer we stay to Jesus the more we can make (Psalm 16:11) one of our life verses: “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
1 Quote by Rick Warren: “God is more interested in your character than y…” (goodreads.com)