How to avoid drifting

Today's reading Hebrews 2:1-4

.

Today's Blog

“We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” (Hebrews 2:1)

.

Drifting is easy to do. We often don’t even realise that it’s happening, not least in regard to our faith and our relationship with God. “There are few people who deliberately and in a moment turn their backs on God; there are many who day by day drift further away from him” (Barclay). The truth about who Jesus is, so magnificently expressed in the opening verses of this letter (1:1-3), can drift to the edge of our thinking if we are not careful.

.

“Therefore”, says the writer, “be careful!” In particular, “pay careful attention to what we have heard”, never forgetting who Jesus is and what he has done for us. The Greek word translated careful attention was also used for the mooring of a ship and that’s a sense which is clearly apt as an answer to the problem of drifting.

.

Jesus is the glorious Son of God who through his priestly ministry on our behalf has opened up the way for us to come into the very presence of God. And taking hold of that hope will greatly encourage us to keep following Jesus, because it’s a hope which is “an anchor for the soul, firm and secure” (6:18-19). An anchor is obviously what we need to stop us from drifting, so “let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess” (10:23).

.

(To dig a bit deeper into Hebrews 2:1-4 click here for some commentary notes.)