lest we drift away

"Therefore, we must pay much closer to the things we have heard, lest we drift away from it." - Hebrews 2:1

More than any verse in the last year, this one has been burned into my mind. In recent months I have been caught repeating it over and over again. I have prayed over it, meditated over it and been confronted with the enormity of my sin of complacency.

And I'm not talking about my inaction within the church or in life (although a good case could be made for that), I'm talking about my apathy towards this "great salvation" that Hebrews speaks of so highly.

The first chapter of Hebrews is a Christ exalting hymn of praise. God spoke to us by His Son, the heir of all things, creator and sustainer of the world, God made visible and mightier than angels. Therefore, we should pay attention to it. Because it is a great and awesome thing that God has come down to save us. PAY ATTENTION because it is worthy of all attention.

And then the sober warning, "lest you drift away from it." What a terrible thing, to drift. So subtle. So easy. So deadly. It takes no energy to drift away from something. It's not like taking an oar and working to pull yourself away from Christ. It's not doing all the impure things of this world. It's simply refusing to pay attention. That's easy. And I do it all the time.

And the scarier part is that you can be drifting and still doing things that look good. You can still be evangelizing, helping the poor, teaching in the church, and faithfully tithing. You can be the first to volunteer for every event and the last to leave. You can be, outwardly, a great Christian and still be drifting away from Christ.

So, I encourage you with the writer of Hebrews, to "take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." (Hebrews 3:12-13)

-joe