Monday, July 5, 2010

Spiritual Drifting

I heard this sermon preached a couple weeks ago by our Senior Pastor and it was so striking I wanted to summarize it and bring it to you. He spoke on Spiritual drifting. Hebrews 2:1-3 warns against neglecting your salvation. It does not say rejecting it, but neglecting it. So many times we are all in danger of neglecting our salvation and we start to drift away from God.

Neglect will cause us to drift away unintentionally, unknowingly, and unexpectedly. Very few people purposely reject and turn away from God, but many many people just drift away slowing without really knowing it. Drifting is easy because it requires no effort, people are looking for an effortless religion. You can go to church every Sunday and still be drifting away from God.

Remember that drifting never takes you forward only backward. And it will always lead to a waterfall disaster in your life. That could be a loss of a job, a marriage, ministry, or family. In many of these cases sin can be traced back to the root cause. Everyone, including ministers have to guard against drifting. Life becomes one day after another and soon you find yourself, if your even looking, a long way from where you started.

Some signs of drifting are these. A lack of interest of Bible and Prayer, when you would rather spend time around non Christian people, when you can hear the truth and the word and it not affect you, when you begin to see your sin as no big deal and when we forget that ending well is as important and how we began.

We must be properly anchored so as not to drift when life’s storms come along. Otherwise when the storm is over we find ourselves way off course. If we don’t re-evaluate our course we just continue along off course all the while not realizing how far away from God we have gotten. Our anchor is the Bible and Prayer. Neglecting these will most assuredly float you off course.

Take the time to do a little self inventory. Are you drifting, are you where you should be in God? Matthew 7 speaks of the narrow road and narrow gate. Don’t try to walk the wide road and think that you can just jump over to the narrow gate at the end. Your life must be a Christian walk not a worldly walk claiming a Christian salvation in word only.

We all find ourselves drifting. God’s grace will pick us up and put us back on the right road if we simply recognize that we are off course and readjust our path.