October 31, 2021
During my lunch break at work, I generally do my devotional reading and I have pondered all week on the Scripture I read Monday. “Therefore, we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away” Hebrews 2:1 (NKJV). I have pondered all week the reasons why Christians drift in their spirituality. Why do Christians who once attended church regularly now attend sparingly, if at all? Why do Christians who used to spend quite a bit of time in God’s word or in prayer no longer read their Bibles or pray regularly, if at all. In most cases, the answer is, quite frankly, they begin to drift. The Hebrew writer uses the word “drift” in a nautical sense. In the same way a boat might slowly drift away from shore and out to sea, a Christian can drift off course spiritually. I suppose the question that needs to be asked is why do Christians drift? There are many different answers to that question. Probably the biggest reason Christians drift is addressed by the Hebrew writer in the next couple of verses and that reason is neglect. When it is time to go to worship with the church, other things creep in and we begin to neglect going to church. The time we once spent in meditating on God’s word and communicating with God in prayer, we now spend doing other things. These other things don’t necessarily have to be bad. In fact, most of them are good. However, our busy schedules cause us to neglect the very things that bring us into a closer, deeper relationship with God and next thing we know, when we stop to access our relationship with God and with our fellow Christians, we discover that we have drifted out of fellowship with God. Generally, it isn’t a sudden event that draws us away from God, it is just a gradual, careless drift that carries us out to sea and away from the safety of God’s arms. You might ask, how do we prevent ourselves from drifting in our spiritual walk? The answer is found in our scripture, “give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard.” In other words, pay attention! Many of our relationships fail because of neglect, and the way to avoid neglect is to pay attention to those relationships and do the things necessary to keep the relationship vibrant and growing. The good news is, even though we might drift, as Christians, we can never drift past the point of no return. When we recognize where we are and what is happening, we can repent, alter our course, and get right back on track. When we do that, we can both be blessed and then go be a blessing to others. . . Andy
