Sometimes the Hardest Thing and the Right Thing Are the Same

Convenience. We live in a society filled with convenience. These days, we don't even have to leave our homes to get what we want. We can call and order food. We can buy groceries online. Instead of going out and buying a book, we can buy the e-book online. We love convenience. Another example of convenience is Las Vegas. There, we can get a glimpse of internationally acclaimed attractions like pyramids and the Eiffel Tower. In this case, convenience skews reality. People marvel at the sight of such things. Yes, it's convenient to go to Vegas and get an all in one tour of the world. However, it's not real. The Eiffel Tower in Vegas pales in comparison to the real thing.

1 Kings 12:25-33.

This Jeroboam guy, the guy that craftily and opportunistically took the throne from Rehoboam was quite cunning. He knew that he would lose control if the Israelites turned back to God and worshiped Him. In Jewish culture, the men were required to travel to the temple in Jerusalem three times a year. So to undermine this, Jeroboam built golden calves. One was located at Bethel, a town 10 miles north of Jerusalem on a highly trafficked road. The other was built at Dan, the northernmost city in Israel.

Jeroboam played this off like a act of love to his people. "It is too much or you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel." Here's the nutty part. After all that God had done for the Israelites, they quickly forgot and worshiped these calves! Part of the reason? It was so much easier to go to these calves than to go to Jerusalem. In their convenience, they neglected the Lord and His command to not worship false idols.

To think, the Israelites must have been saying "Wow, worshiping these new Gods is so much easier than worshiping the old God. I like this better." They were lulled into sinning and thinking that the convenient and yet totally fake god was better than the Lord. The people that once worshiped God were now caught in a false reality fostered by convenience.

Now here's a real question: how often do we do this? For the sake of our convenience, how often do we neglect the Lord and His commands? Just because it might be easier for us to follow something that is contrary to what God desires does not make it better nor does it make it the right thing to do. We shouldn't live for convenience. We shouldn't even live to see the fruit of our results and to feel all warm and fuzzy about it afterward. Even when doing the right thing is hard, do it anyway. The reward that we live for is greater than any consolation of doing things the easy and yet an non-glorifying way. Our reward is in heaven, not on earth.
Keep fighting the good fight!

1 Timothy 6:11-16
But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.