EASY is a Four Letter Word...

“And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." 'But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'”  Luke 12:19-20

I have recently committed to memorizing John 15… again. This is my second attempt as I felt led to do this a couple of years ago and started it, but didn’t complete it because, for me, memorizing scripture is NOT easy! This time, I am determined to get her done! Last night I memorized verse 8 “This is to my Fathers glory, that you will bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (and yes, I typed it by memory, ha!). I was thinking and meditating on this verse the other day and my thought process went down the “fruit” and “disciple” road which ultimately brought me to the “EASY is a four letter word” epiphany.

Fruit

First, let’s take a look at fruit. That is a big word and a very big deal to God. It is listed 50 times in the NIV New Testament! Jesus talks about fruit a lot. In verse two of John 15 Jesus says that our Father, the Gardener, cuts off every branch that bears NO fruit, and He prunes every branch that does bear fruit so that it will be even MORE fruitful. We are the branches and Jesus is the vine, our job is to remain in Him and bear fruit and any branch that doesn’t is cut off. So if fruit is that important to God, fruit should be pretty darn important to us too! He says, if we remain in Him and He remains in us, we WILL bear much fruit. Apart from Him we can do NOTHING (vs 5). Any branch that doesn’t remain in Him is like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned (vs 6). So, in order to bear fruit, we must REMAIN in Him and Him in us. Is this easy? NOT. And how do we “remain” in him? He tells us in verse 10; “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.”

So what is fruit and how do we produce it? Is it donating lots of money? Doing “good” works? Feeding the poor? Leading people to Christ? Maybe. Can we do those things and it NOT be “fruit”? I believe that is very possible. If we are not doing them in “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control”, the Fruit of the Spirit, it would NOT be considered “fruit”! If we are doing it in our own way, strength and timing, and not God’s, or out of a selfish desire to look good, or to impress people, I don’t think it would be considered fruit either. So, is it easy to produce good fruit? NOT.

Disciples 

Now let’s look at disciples. Is being a disciple of Jesus easy?? Heck no! Just look at these scriptures and what He requires of His disciples:

“Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." Matthew 8:19-20

“Another disciple said to him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus told him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."  Matthew 8:21-22

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:26-27

“Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family." Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." Luke 9:61-62

“Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Matthew 10:38

 “Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.”  Matthew 16:24-25

“Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Matthew 19:21

Are Jesus’ words “easy”? I don’t think so.

Easy

So, who has heard of the slogan “The EASY button”? That is exactly what the world peddles. Take life easy! Relax, you deserve it! Want to lose weight? Just take a pill! Or, “Just do these 3 EASY steps to lose 10 pounds… send us your money and lose weight today!” “No more exercising! Just follow these EASY instructions and the pounds will melt off your body!” Don’t want to cook tonight? Just order out! Fast food drive-thrus everywhere! We have tons of prepackaged easy meals at our fingertips! No more slaving all day in the kitchen, take it EASY and just order a pizza to be delivered to your door! You want that latest gadget or electronic toy but can’t afford it? No need to wait, it’s easy, just put it on your credit card! Oh, so, so tempting. How many of us have fallen for one or more of these EASY solutions over and over again? I know I am not the only one!! :P  Let me ask you. What is the fruit of all of these “easy” ways? Does it make you stronger or more patient? Or do you feel better in the long run? Do we really loose those extra unwanted pounds for good or just the cash we spent on the pills or programs? Are we more compassionate, loving, kind, healthy or happy? Not that I have experienced. I think the hardest part is not buying into and believing these very “tempting” lies because we WANT them to work! It is all around us every day! Everywhere we turn we hear these voices begging us to just do things the EASY way! After a while we certainly can get weak and give in.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think everything should be hard. There are times when “easy” is just fine. But, if the truth be told, isn’t anything that is valuable and beneficial VERY difficult to do? The things I put the most time and effort into are important to me. I spend a great deal of time in the kitchen because my health, and how I feel about myself, is important to me. I spend time listening to the Word and talking to God because HE is important to me. I spend time in the garden because I get a great deal of pleasure and benefit from that time and effort. I spend time working on ME, my emotional and spiritual health, and my marriage because these are very important to me. Is it easy to exercise on a regular basis, eat the right food every day and resist the temptation to eat junk and sweets? Or to see the yuck in my heart that needs to be refined so that I can be a good wife, person and servant of the Lord? No way Jose!! But is it worth it? Oh yeah! For me it is! Every moment of it.

As it is in the natural, so it is in the Spiritual. Oswald’s July 7^th devotion was saying the same thing I am saying here! I love it when God confirms what He is saying to me!

All Efforts of Worth and Excellence Are Difficult

Matthew 7:13-14 – “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.”

“If we are going to live as disciples of Jesus, we have to remember that all efforts of worth and excellence are difficult. The Christian life is gloriously difficult, but its difficulty does not make us faint and cave in --- it stirs us up to overcome. Do we appreciate the miraculous salvation of Jesus Christ enough to be our utmost for His highest --- our best for His glory?

God saves people by His sovereign grace through the atonement of Jesus, and "it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure" (Phi_2:13). But we have to "work out" that salvation in our everyday, practical living (Phi_2:12). If we will only start on the basis of His redemption to do what He commands, then we will find that we can do it. If we fail, it is because we have not yet put into practice what God has placed within us. But a crisis will reveal whether or not we have been putting it into practice. If we will obey the Spirit of God and practice in our physical life what God has placed within us by His Spirit, then when a crisis does come we will find that our own nature, as well as the grace of God, will stand by us.

Thank God that He does give us difficult things to do! His salvation is a joyous thing, but it is also something that requires bravery, courage, and holiness. It tests us for all we are worth. Jesus is "bringing many sons to glory" (Heb_2:10), and God will not shield us from the requirements of sonship. God's grace produces men and women with a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ, not pampered, spoiled weaklings. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline to live the worthy and excellent life of a disciple of Jesus in the realities of life. And it is always necessary for us to make an effort to live a life of worth and excellence.”

I LIKE that! “It is ALWAYS necessary for us to make an effort to live a life of worth and excellence.”!! That is what I am talking about!! And I also love this line “Thank God that He does give us difficult things to do! His salvation is a joyous thing, but it is also something that requires bravery, courage, and holiness. It tests us for all we are worth.”!!

Biblical search

Just out of curiosity I decided to do a little search to see how many times the word “easy” is listed in the New Testament. Can you guess?? Only 2 times! And I already listed the first one, Luke 12:19-20, at the beginning of this blog (take a quick peak again as a refresher) and here is the second one:

“For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11:30

Now isn’t that interesting?! Did you see what I am seeing? It seems like the Luke scripture is depicting the world’s way and the Matthew scripture is God’s way. The Greek word for “easy” in Matthew is chrēstos and it is only translated as “easy” in this one scripture (your version may vary). It is used 7 times in the New Testament, the other six are; Kind two times, better once, good once, goodness once and gracious once. So, maybe we can say this scripture better by saying “His yoke is “better, good, gracious and kind” as opposed to “easy”. That kind of puts a different light and connotation to this verse, doesn’t it?

In the Luke scripture the word for easy in the Greek is anapauō (the King James translates as “ease”). This word is used 12 times in the New Testament and is translated the other 11 times as, rest 6 times, refreshed 3 times, refresh 1 time and resteth 1 time. So the Luke scripture using the word easy is a bit closer to the original word; “I will rest, refresh myself and resteth… eat, drink and be marry…”

For a contrast and comparison I looked to see how many times these other words were listed:

Endure – 36, Endurance – 12 = 48, Patient – 18, Suffering – 53, Trials – 8, Perseverance – 11, Faith – 266, Trust – 85… That should tell us something… just say’n…

Jesus knew our journey wasn’t going to be easy so that is why He asked us to have faith in Him, to trust Him and persevere with patient endurance through the trials we will encounter because he KNEW it wasn’t going to be easy. He told us in John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” I didn’t hear Him say, “Life is a piece of cake! Relax, rest and take it easy!” In my journey to know God, He has asked me to do some REALLY HARD things and being obedient, and doing those hard things, certainly wasn’t easy. Being a disciple is NOT easy but it is OH SO worth it!! Oswald says, unless we are completely and utterly dependent on HIM we will never know when He is missing... DOH! It may be HARD to be obedient, letting go of control and our own way of doing things, but it is SO very worth it. This is a good time to read Oswald’s line again: “Thank God that He does give us difficult things to do! His salvation is a joyous thing, but it is also something that requires bravery, courage, and holiness. It tests us for all we are worth.”

So, the next time someone says, “You shouldn’t work so hard at that, you should just do it the easy way!” or “Just push the easy button”, remember, EASY is a four letter word!  :)

“And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." 'But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'”  Luke 12:19-20