Good afternoon everyone, I know I already posted an article today, but God is laying it on my heart to post something else.

Something that might bother some of you because it’s new and it’s unsettling news, but it’s also something that many Christians are aware of and they embrace it each and every day.

Some churches preach a watered-down version of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They take the Bible and soak it in… I guess you might call it, “theological paint thinner.”

They try to dumb down and therefore weaken the tenets of Christianity, the core of the belief.

My favorite falsehood that is permeating Christianity right now is that when you give your life to Jesus and you begin to follow him, your life gets easier.

I’m here to tell you right now that that is false.

As someone who didn’t follow Jesus for most of my life, as someone who turned my back on him after giving my life to him… as someone who tried to run away from him for 15 years…. I can tell you that when you go to him your life does not get easier. When you aren’t following him, you can do whatever you want. You can drink, you can party, you can do drugs, you can have sex before marriage, you can curse, you can steal, you can even kill.

You are literally free to do whatever you want.

But that comes at a price, a price that will eat away at you until there’s nothing left. A price that is like a corrosive acid, but also silent like cancer.

You won’t realize what it’s doing to your soul until it’s too late.

You won’t realize you’ve gone down the wrong path until you’ve gone too far to turn back.

You won’t realize you’re in the eternal prison that is hell until the cell door slams shut behind you.

And during the whole journey of your life, you’ll be given many chances to turn around many chances to care about the eternal fate of your soul, and you will spit each and every one of them back in God’s face.

That’s why a life without God seems easier.

It seems easier because the devil’s not gonna be trying to fight against you.

It seems easier because he’s not going to have to fight to rip you out of God’s hands.

It seems easier because you’re already on his team, you’re already in his grasp, you’re already lost.

Why should he fight against his own ally?

If you read God’s word, you know what will happen to the devil, his angels and each and every soul that decides to follow him.

You know what awaits God’s enemies.

If you’ve read all of that in scripture and you understand what you’ve read, and yet you still turn away from God for whatever reason, then you have sealed your own fate.

You’ve hardened your heart for the last time just as the pharaoh of Exodus did.

You’ve allowed your mind to become reprobate and God will not save you. He will allow you to walk the path you have chosen the path that leads away from him and to eternal punishment.

The life of a true follower of Christ will not be easy. Some days you might even collapse under the weight of the cross you carry, but as long as you get up and keep walking the path that god set before you, you can never fail.

Followers of Christ, the adopted children of God… are not born to coast through life, but to fight through it with God around them, with his Holy Spirit in them, with his boundless power fighting for them.

With his hands and his will working through them.

Followers of Christ go through trials and tribulations each and every day we are tested, we are pushed to the limit because God has to put something inside of us and the devil wants to kill it.

God has put a fire inside of all of us who follow him, and the devil wants to extinguish it.  

Anyone who tells you that the life of a believer in Christ is easy isn’t following him.

The life of a believer in Christ is the hardest life there is to live in this world.

Because you have no control once you surrender it to Christ.

He will tell you what to do and you will do it. He will tell you when you’ve done wrong and urge you to fix it.

He will strengthen you through pain, he will empower you through suffering, he will build you through trials, and he will test you through tribulations… until you are who he made you to be, until you are ready for life with him in eternity.

The life of a believer, the life of a follower of Christ, the life of a child of God is a hard one indeed.

But we are born to fight, in him, we live to succeed.