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Being a Christian these days in America is very comfortable, middle-class, and respectable. What are the dangers in that?

The Bible is really clear in 1 Timothy 6:9 that making godliness a means of gain–financial gain–is deadly; and the deadliness of it is in the desire to be rich. It says to not desire to be rich, because “those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.” In other words, it is suicidal to want to be rich.

One of the main dangers in being comfortable in our Christianity is that over time comfort tends to begin to feel like something that God–or the world–owes us; and what we once called “luxury” is now called “need.” More and more we want things, and securities, and comforts. And we find our conversations with people even drifiting onto the subject of special new things that we have just bought and we’re not talking Kingdom language anymore. It’s a creeping kind of gangrene with a smiling face on it that eats away at the heart of the Kingdom.

When Jesus said Matthew 6:31-33–“Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For all the nations seek after these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.