The easy way, or the right way

“They say to the seers, ‘See no more visions!’ and to the prophets, ‘Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.’” Isaiah 30:10
Imagine if you went to the doctor for a check-up, and he or she told you, ‘Everything is fine – you couldn’t be more healthy.’ But in actual fact, you have three weeks to live. What would you think? Would you thank the doctor for their kind words? No – you would be angry because they didn’t tell you the truth. Sure, the news may come as a shock to you, but at least it allows you to prepare and do something about it.
When it comes to telling people the gospel, many of us are too afraid to mention words like ‘sin’ and ‘hell’ because we don’t like to be confrontational. We think people will be angry at us for telling them they will spend eternity in hell if they have not believed in Jesus for salvation. They may well be angry, but if the Holy Spirit is convicting their hearts, it will be at the situation that they are in, not at you as the messenger per se, so long as you have told them the truth in love.
People don’t want to hear the truth of God because it would mean they would have to do something, to change their lifestyle of sin. Paul wrote to Timothy, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Tim. 4:3). Even after becoming a Christian, there are some hard lessons that we need to learn if we want to grow in the Lord. There are certain things that we may have liberty to do, which we need to give up in order to have more time to spend with the Lord. There are often two ways for us to choose from in a situation: the right way, and the easy way – and they are usually not the same.