A LOVING FAMILY

We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard so that we do not drift away. For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard Him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to His will. (Heb. 2: 1-4)

Perhaps even more treacherous to the faith and faithfulness of the believer than outright temptation, is the tendency to drift. One of Satan’s most effective ploys is to suggest that it is important for us to ‘serve’ the Lord. O yes, he comes to us as an angel of light. ‘God will be pleased with you if you are busy ‘serving’ Jesus,’ he sneers. Unfortunately, we don’t hear the sneer in his voice.

What is the message we heard? Believe in Jesus and receive Him as your personal Saviour so that you can go to heaven when you die? Really? Is that the reason Jesus came? This is not the message of my Bible. Jesus called me to follow Him, to learn from Him and to imitate Him. For what purpose? So that I might have fellowship with the Father as His daughter, redeemed and reconciled to Him through the blood of His Son.

Being a son or daughter of God was His original intention, ruined by Adam’s disobedience, and restored through Jesus the Christ. God wanted a family of humans who would resemble Him and be one with Him so that, through them, He would govern His creation. Living in harmony with Him, with one another and with the world would be a witness to the fallen angels that He is a loving Father, and not a cruel tyrant who evicted them from heaven for their rebellion.

How does a family maintain its loving fellowship? Surely it is by obeying the Father and keeping in touch with Him and with one another! The Father’s greatest pleasure is to see His family being a family. The greatest heartache for any parent is to lose touch with his children and for them to lose touch with one another. Busyness causes them to drift apart and it happens slowly and subtly.

God is a perfect Father. His family is His greatest joy and delight. He gave His people His ‘Torah’, His instructions for living in harmony with Him and with one another so that they could show the world what the true God was really like. The Jews missed it. They were more interested in the pagan gods around them who pandered to their fleshly lusts and selfish ways.

God sent His Son to be the model of a true son who would live every moment in a loving and intimate relationship with Him so that He could know and do the Father’s will. Jesus called twelve men to follow Him. He both taught and showed them how to be sons of God and how to live under the authority of the heavenly Father. The disciples discovered that His way really worked. When the Holy Spirit came on them as He had come on Jesus, they received the power to imitate their Master.

The apostles went everywhere, living and passing on the good news that Jesus was God’s Son and that He had come to set them free from the shackles of sin so they could return to the Father and to Father’s house. They taught those who received the message what Jesus had taught them. The way to maintain their fellowship with Him and with the Father through Him was to ‘remain in Him’ (John 15: 5).

Of course, maintaining their union with Jesus would take discipline and perseverance. The other alternative was to drift and lose their closeness to Him. The problem with drifting is that their natural bent was towards selfish and self-centred living, following and satisfying their sinful desires. If they did that, they would drift back into the ways of death. Sin leads to death. If they did not maintain their life in Jesus, they would surely die.

This salvation was no human invention. The Old Covenant, given to God’s people from Mount Sinai was accompanied by awesome signs which terrified them, Violation of that covenant was serious enough to bring judgment – and it was mediated by angels and ratified by animal blood. What of the New Covenant, sealed by the blood of God’s perfect Son? Who will escape and how will they escape if they drifted away from obeying that covenant?

Obviously, there is no answer. No one will escape. God is inescapable! Why should anyone escape? God cannot treat anyone leniently who ignores or despises the blood He Son shed to bring us back to Him. The answer? Don’t drift! Walk with Jesus one day at a time, remaining in Him and in His word.

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and me in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. (John 15: 5, 6)

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.