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 

Bible Study

13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"-

14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

15 Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."

16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. - James 4:13-17

5 you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.

8 Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. - 1 Corinthians 5:5-8

A little leaven leavens the whole lump. - Galatians 5:9

Do not be deceived: "Bad company ruins good morals." - 1 Corinthians 15:33

Bible Study

 8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well.

9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

11 For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.

13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. - James 2:8-13

21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

22 And have mercy on those who doubt;

23 save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. - Jude 1:21-23

17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."

18 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. - Romans 9:17-18

So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. - Romans 9:16

Sin, Satan, Sickness, or Sabotage

 

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:8–9)

Is the suffering that comes to the Christian because of persecution the same as the suffering that comes from cancer? Do the promises given to one apply to the other? My answer is yes. All of life, if it is lived earnestly by faith in the pursuit of God’s glory and the salvation of others, will meet with some kind of obstacle and suffering. The suffering that comes to the obedient Christian is part of the price of living where you are in obedience to the call of God.

In choosing to follow Christ in the way he directs, we choose all that this path includes under his sovereign providence. Thus, all suffering that comes in the path of obedience is suffering with Christ and for Christ — whether it is cancer at home or persecution far away.

And it is “chosen” — that is, we willingly take the path of obedience where the suffering befalls us, and we do not murmur against God. We may pray — as Paul did — that the suffering be removed (2 Corinthians 12:8); but if God wills, we embrace it as part of the cost of discipleship in the path of obedience on the way to heaven.

All experiences of suffering in the path of Christian obedience, whether from persecution or sickness or accident, have this in common: They all threaten our faith in the goodness of God, and tempt us to leave the path of obedience.

Therefore, every triumph of faith, and all perseverance in obedience, are testimonies to the goodness of God and the preciousness of Christ — whether the enemy is sickness, Satan, sin, or sabotage. Therefore, all suffering, of every kind, that we endure in the path of our Christian calling is a suffering “with Christ” and “for Christ.”

With him in the sense that the suffering comes to us as we are walking with him by faith, and in the sense that it is endured in the strength he supplies through his sympathizing high-priestly ministry to us (Hebrews 4:15).

And for him in the sense that the suffering tests and proves our allegiance to his goodness and power, and in the sense that it reveals his worth as an all-sufficient compensation and prize.

John Piper

Does God Hear You?

 

BIBLE MEDITATION

“There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian Regiment, a devout man…. About the ninth hour of the day, he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, 'Cornelius!... Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God.'" Acts 10:1-4

 

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT

Cornelius was a Gentile, pagan, Roman army officer, a centurion, but one whose prayers God certainly heard. Acts 10 describes him as “a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God always.” He was an unsaved man, but God was aware of and answered his prayer.

What’s the difference between a child of God who can pray in the name of Jesus and an unsaved person who prays? God has given prayer promises to the child of God that He has not given to the unsaved. But God can hear the unsaved person’s prayers and have mercy upon him.

Think of it this way—let’s say a banker voluntarily gives money to a charity or worthy cause. He doesn’t have to. No law says he must. It’s just what he wants to do. But on the other hand, let’s say I have money deposited in his bank. I can go in and write a check on my account and expect he will give me that money. Do you see the difference? In my case, it’s legally owed to me, and I receive it. In the other, it’s God’s gift of grace.

ACTION POINT

God says, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion” (Romans 9:15). In mercy, God extends his love to us. Rejoice that God is merciful to all who call upon Him. Go before His Throne of Grace knowing that God wants to hear from you and to speak with you in prayer.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Three Reasons Why You Pray

BIBLE MEDITATION

“And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, 'Abba, Father!'"Galatians 4:6

 

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT

People ask, “Should we pray when God already knows our needs? Why tell Him what He already knows? Or ask Him to do what He already wants to do?” We don’t pray to impress God or to inform Him. You can’t tell God anything He doesn’t already know. So why are we praying?

For fellowship. We invite God into our lives when we pray. We experience fellowship with Him, becoming “…workers together with Him…” (2 Corinthians 6:1). When we pray, God gives us the privilege of administrating His affairs. Of course, He could do it without us. But what joy that God allows us the privilege of doing it with Him.

For our growth. When we pray, God is growing us. Have you ever prayed and didn’t immediately receive what you asked for? What did you do? You kept on praying, but you also began searching your heart to see if something was hindering God’s answer. Many times there is. God uses prayer to grow us.

For dependence. Our Father never wants us to live independently from Him. If God just did everything for us and we never had to pray, soon we would begin to take things for granted. We would cease to depend upon God.

He knows what we need before we ask, but we’re told to pray and to ask—so we would have fellowship with Him, so we would grow, and learn to depend upon Him.

ACTION POINT

You don’t have to understand everything about prayer in order to pray. You may have valid questions about prayer, but don’t let your questions keep you from praying.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Radical Recompense

“Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.” (Mark 10:29–30)

What Jesus means here is that he himself makes up for every sacrifice.

If you give up a mother’s nearby affection and concern, you get back one hundred times the affection and concern from the ever-present Christ.

If you give up the warm comradeship of a brother, you get back one hundred times the warmth and comradeship of Christ.

If you give up the sense of at-homeness you had in your house, you get back one hundred times the comfort and security of knowing that your Lord owns every house.

To prospective missionaries, Jesus says, “I promise to work for you, and be for you, so much that you will not be able to speak of having sacrificed anything.”

What was Jesus’s attitude to Peter’s “sacrificial” spirit? Peter said, “We have left everything and followed you” (Mark 10:28). Is this the spirit of “self-denial” commended by Jesus? No, it is rebuked.

Jesus said to Peter, “No one ever sacrifices anything for me that I do not pay back a hundredfold — yes, in one sense even in this life, not to mention eternal life in the age to come.”

John Piper