For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard lest we drift away from it.
In the book of Hebrews there are several warning passages. This is the first one.
At this point, the fact is established that Jesus is greater than any earthly or heavenly power. For that reason, WE must pay close attention to his message. We must study his life and his teachings and live by them.
One of the great sections of the Bible is Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. We have a lot of people out there who tell us how we need to live, what we need to do to be good people and so on. The government tells us what is illegal and legal. University Professors tell us what ethics are. Our culture teaches us what is right and wrong (if you don't believe me just pay attention to how our culture responds to issues like pornography, environmental needs, the use of our money, and just about any ethical issue you can think of). Essentially everyone wants to tell you how to run your life. However as a Christian, if this great section in Matthew 5-7 is not the backbone of your ethics, then you need to reconsider what you are doing.
And this warning does not just have to do with the ethics of our lives.
The principles, teachings, and warnings of the Bible need to be taken seriously. They need to be the backbone of who we are.
The warning here is "lest we drift away from it."
Many people teach that one cannot drift away from God. In fact if you are a Christian, then you are a Christian forever. If you "fall away" then you were never really a Christian to begin with. I do not believe this. As Christians we need to continually seek out our salvation. Yes there is the time when our sins were washed away. But after that, now is the time that we seek out becoming more like Christ (seek to become holy as he is holy). If I stopped doing nice things for my wife, did nothing for her, and relied on the fact that at one point in time we said I do, we would drift away from each other and our marriage would fail. It is like that with God. If you do not seek him and attempt to live and think as he calls us to, that relationship will end.
Let this verse stand as a warning encouragement. Seek God out everyday. Do not just rely on the fact that you sought forgiveness for sins at one point in the past. Seek him out and you will find him and he will guide you everyday.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
ok. i agree with you to a point. if you stop doing nice things for melissa, you are still married. but the intimacy of your marriage is not there. it's about relationship.
ReplyDeleteonce you are a new creation, there is no going back to an old one, however, i think that if we fail to continually seek God, we lose the beauty and depth of an intimate relationship with Him.
but He is so good and so full of grace. we can come back to Him. if it were that once someone fell away they could not come back to Him, then His grace would be insufficient. and to say we would have to come to salvation again does not align with what Jesus accomplished on the cross. He died for our sins. all at once. for us to recieve it. once.
good thoughts. Let me offer this as some possible things to consider. For a long time I viewed salvation as a line. Once we believed in Christ we crossed over that line and were now with God. But I believed it was possible to go back across that line. However, in order to do this I thought I would have to begin living a lifestyle of sin. (pause)
ReplyDeleteHere's what I've come to understand since. Salvation has become more about us than about God and this is unfortunate. God saves us in the work of Christ from sin but also he saves us to Himself. There is no line, only relationship and wrath. As Paul says clearly in Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, and all over the NT, that relationship is based purely on grace through faith. But then the question remains, can someone fall away?
Well the idea is certainly Biblical. Read Timothy, Hebrews, Romans, any of the Gospels, and study out the ideas of apostasy, falling away, perseverance, and endurance. But how? It seems to me that the relationship is and will always be based on faith. The real question we should wrestle with is not "can I lose my salvation?" The question we must wrestle with is "can I lose my faith?" I'm not sure about the answer to that question, but let's not play the once saved always saved game. Let us ask the hard question, namely, is it possible to stop believing in Jesus once I have supposedly begun?