Monday, October 5, 2020

“Therefore we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.” —Hebrews 2:1

We all experience important things slipping our minds. Sometimes I’ll have an event on my calendar that semi-surprises me every time I see it on the screen. Or I’ll put a new proof of insurance document that I need to take to my car right next to my keys, which is a perfect system—except I’ll still manage to grab the keys half a dozen times before remembering to bring along the insurance document.

It’s clear from reading the Old and New Testaments that the biblical writers were aware that the capacity to forget applies in our relationship with God, too. At the beginning of the book of Hebrews, the writer reminds readers that the revelation we’ve received in Jesus far surpasses any previous revelation of God. And yet even this unique revelation of God and the salvation offered through Jesus Christ sometimes drift from our minds.

I sometimes think that one way to understand the life of faith is that our spiritual practices (worship, prayer, reading Scripture, spiritual friendships, etc.) center us in God’s truth, and then the fallen forces of this world do their best to destroy our faith, and so we return to spiritual practices that remind us of the truth. This is probably an overly simplistic way to think about it, but there’s something to it. I’ve never met a Christian so mature that he or she doesn’t have to fight the tendency to drift away from the truth we’ve heard.

As frustrating as this can be, I actually find it encouraging and beautiful. Our faith lives are about relationship with God, and relationships require ongoing interaction. Our human-to-human relationships never reach a point at which they don’t require attention. You don’t tell your parents or your spouse or your kids that you love them one time. Healthy relationships require paying attention, and so it is with relationship with our Heavenly Father.

So let’s make it a practice to pay greater attention to the truth we’ve heard, and to the God who has provided so great a salvation.