Give or Take

 

I’ve been thinking lately about the people who apparently have an experience in their lives where they understand that Christ took their sin on Himself at the Cross. They are very grateful and, in a sincere act of faith, invite Him to be their Savior, to live and reign in them. They are so thankful for awhile and they attend church and maybe even get discipled by an older, presumably wiser, Christian.

The two I’m thinking of in particular came to Christ and the church at difficult times in their lives. For these two it was marriage problems. They made a commitment to allow the Lord to work in their husbands and to heal their marriages. Today, both of these women – several years later for both of them – are living happy lives in marriages with the husbands of their youth. Praise the Lord!!! God is faithful

But now, I don’t see them at my own church or hear from them that they are at any other church. I know that I’ll probably see them Christmas Eve or hear about the service they went to somewhere else. But, week by week, they don’t feel like they need to be taught or to study God’s Word. Work schedules and sports schedules have taken over their Sundays and they aren’t in any real need right now so it feels safe.

Just for the record, they are no worse off than the person who does show up every week but their heart is far from God. They come for others to see so they don’t show the true state of their spiritual life. They attend but they do not hear or participate.

 The Bible tells us in the book of Hebrews:
We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. Hebrews 2:1

We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised. Hebrews 6:12
So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. Hebrews 10:35

To stay in fellowship with other Christians and to keep our minds in the Word of God is to be prepared when troubles do hit. When we step away we lose our confidence, we have no patience because we haven’t been reminded of what the Lord will do for us.

As we look at the Old Testament passages where God was saving His people, Israel, He had to keep reminding them of who HE is and what He had done for them. They repeatedly forgot and nothing has changed in man since that time. We forget His attributes if we aren’t regularly reminded of God’s goodness, faithfulness, and love. But we also forget that He is just and He has expectations of His people. He’ll do what he needs to do to get our attention.

When the Lord was getting my attention the first time a car ran over my foot; for the ladies I mentioned earlier it was marital issues. God uses what He will to draw us to Him.

 It is my goal to be diligent to stay in God’s Word and to worship Him with other believers regularly so that I don’t need to face another “attention getter” from my God. I want to voluntarily give Him my heart because when He wants it, He will get it. He’ll never take it — He will convince us to give it back! .