Hebrews 2.1 We must
pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do
not drift away.
In the original texts, there were no chapters and verses
assigned; the Epistles were simply written documents intended for the use and
edification of the readers in various churches scattered throughout the region.
Hebrews is an epistle – it was meant for Jewish Christians who may have wanted
to revert back to Judaism for various reasons; persecution being one reason.
The writer (we’re not sure who it was) told them: We must pay the most careful attention,
therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. I think that is sound advice for Christians to
this day.
The issue with paying attention is the issue of
remembering and reminding. We’re to remember what was said and remind each
other in the process. The writer said, we must pay the most careful attention
to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away… That is exactly what
happened to ancient Israel.
In the prophet Hosea’s day, the nation of Israel (the
northern ten tribes) had mostly forsaken the teachings and example of their
forefathers and had fallen into a protracted estate of ambivalence toward God.
They had vigorously adopted the rites of pagan religions, and had stopped doing
what God had originally commanded them to do through Moses. They just quit…
paying attention.
I think ambivalence, apathy, and acquiescence are among
the big three in ineffectiveness in our days – we just grow drained,
disinterested and distracted. If ever there was a reason for paying the most
careful attention, it is now because the ‘friction’ of forgetting is
ever-present in our world.
To be a child of God and a disciple of Christ means to
give careful heed to what we have learned and to pay attention to what is
happening in our lives as we follow Jesus. If there is something we are to do,
it’s pretty clear in the instruction of the author of Hebrews: we’re to
beware of how we’re living, and make sure that how we are, matches up with
who we are, in Christ.
Why go to church? Why have personal devotions? Why sing
the songs of the faith? All of these things are supposed to enhance our faith, and retard the forgetting process. If we pay attention to what we have heard, then it follows
that we will live what we have heard.
Falling away is a very silent, invisible, odorless, painless process. It is
enriched by not paying careful attention to who we are and why we are.
Father in Heaven,
help me to pay careful attention. Help me to make sure I am what I am in Jesus.
Thank you for Church and Christian friends, but may they only serve to remind
me to remember who I am in You. And may I remember to be about Your business
today: I represent the King and the Kingdom. Amen
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