Don’t drift
Therefore…. The previous chapter showed us how superlative Jesus is. Therefore! Therefore pay close attention. Watch you are not drifting.
One summer the kids and I were body surfing some wonderful waves in the sea. I wasn’t paying close attention and saw that we had drifted sideways (not, thankfully, out to sea!) quite a way from where Janet was sitting on the beach. If we don’t pay attention, we drift. The world, the flesh and the devil’s currents are subtle, causing a drift away from the great salvation we have (v.3). As the author says later, missing meeting together (Heb 10:25) is one of the first signs of drifting away. We need to be with church family, basking in the warmth of worship and encountering God together, being fed and taught and ministering to each other, to stay red hot for Jesus and effective in our witness.
The author exhorts us to not neglect our great salvation… John Piper gives us this wonderful but incomplete list of what that is. Why not meditate on it and add to it – even in the comments section!
- Don’t neglect being loved by God.
- Don’t neglect being forgiven and accepted and protected and strengthened and guided by Almighty God.
- Don’t neglect the sacrifice of Christ’s life on the cross.
- Don’t neglect the free gift of righteousness imputed by faith.
- Don’t neglect the removal of God’s wrath and the reconciled smile of God.
- Don’t neglect the indwelling Holy Spirit and the fellowship and friendship of the living Christ.
- Don’t neglect the radiance of God’s glory in the face of Jesus.
- Don’t neglect the free access to the throne of grace.
- Don’t neglect the inexhaustible treasure of God’s promises.
At the end of the reading, we see that not only is our salvation so great that we need to not neglect it, we see that Jesus has suffered the same temptations we have without failure, and so can help us stay on course.
Andy Moyle
