The Dangers of Drifting

“Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.” REVELATION 2:5

 

PONDER THIS

What is a backslider? A backslider is not an unsaved person. No unsaved person can be a backslider. When Christians use the term backslider we’re not talking about the lost, we’re talking about the saved. You must go somewhere in order to slide back; that is, you must have known the Lord before you can backslide away from Him. A lost person is just lost. The backslider is a saved person who’s out of fellowship with God.

If there was ever a time when you loved the Lord Jesus Christ more than you love Him at this moment; if there was ever a time when He meant more to you, when prayer was sweeter to you, when worship was more real to you, when your service was more effective for the Lord Jesus Christ; if there was ever a time like that when it was more than it is now, you may be backsliding.

What might be some evidence that you are backsliding in your fellowship with Christ?

What are some ways to guard against this each day?

PRACTICE THIS

Spend dedicated time in prayer, asking God to reveal where you might have backslidden and to renew your fellowship with Him.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Danger of Drifting

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. (Hebrews 2:1)

We all know people that this has happened to. There is no urgency. No vigilance. No focused listening or considering or fixing of their eyes on Jesus. And the result has not been a standing still, but a drifting away.

That is the point here: there is no standing still. The life of this world is not a lake. It is a river. And it is flowing downward to destruction. If you do not listen earnestly to Jesus and consider him daily and fix your eyes on him hourly, then you will not stand still; you will go backward. You will float away from Christ.

Drifting is a deadly thing in the Christian life. And the remedy for it, according to Hebrews 2:1, is: Pay close attention to what you have heard. That is, consider what God is saying in his Son Jesus. Fix your eyes on what God is saying and doing in the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

This is not a hard swimming stroke to learn. The only thing that keeps us from swimming against sinful culture is not the difficulty of the stroke, but our sinful desire to go with the flow.

Let’s not complain that God has given us a hard job. Listen, consider, fix the eyes — this is not what you would call a hard job description. In fact, it is not a job description. It is a solemn invitation to be satisfied in Jesus so that we do not get lured downstream by deceitful desires.

If you are drifting today, one of the signs of hope that you are born again is that you feel pricked for this, and you feel a rising desire to turn your eyes on Jesus and consider him and listen to him in the days and months and years to come.

John Piper