What good does it do to tell someone that something is going to be easy, when it’s going to be hard? I know before I came to California, I was given the impression it was going to be easy. I heard I would succeed and that people would be hungering for what I would give them. This was about the furthest from the truth. Some people are told something before they receive Christ to characterize what their life will be like after they receive Him. Churches then become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, attempting to make the Christian life easy for everyone. Rather than stand for the truth and preach the gospel, churches compromise or water down the truth, so that people won’t have to stand for the truth, as well as turn preaching into inviting someone to a fun event that they might want to attend. When unsaved folks get to church, the church makes it as comfortable as possible and turns almost every aspect of worship into something that will be fun. Rather than give someone the wrong impression that being a Christian is easy, tell him the truth. Tell him it will be hard, but Christianity is the truth, so that God will give him what he needs to make his way through. Someone who decides about Christianity isn’t deciding about something easy. He’s deciding about something hard. Some of the lie that is told is enough of a lie that someone isn’t even receiving the truth of Christianity, the message falling short of a saving gospel. The gospel is good news, but it is still the truth, truth that will sustain someone into the future as he endures hardship.