PAY CLOSER ATTENTION

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

This is the first of five admonitions in the book of Hebrews. It is first of all an insistence on the moral necessity for every believer to very carefully listen to, and keep, the truth they have heard. The word of God is “truth” and this “truth makes us free”, Jesus teaches.

It is the will of God that His Word, which is both alive and active, should produce a life transforming effect on all who pay very closer attention to them.

Next, therefore, the passage warns that we stand to suffer tremendous loss if we neglect to heed the Word and keep it fresh in our hearts and acting on it. Every time we hear the word, there is always a chance that we will let it slip and drift away from conformity to it.

We are sometimes confronted with the cynical question that, “Why, if God’s word is so powerful to change lives, are there many born again Christians in whose lives one will be hard pressed to find any evidence of this change?” This question is more about what people do with the truth. A person’s behaviour, attitudes, and conduct will not be transformed if they have been ignorant of the truth, resistant to the truth or, as our text reveals, negligent of living the truth and so letting it slip out of their hands. The word of God is not impotent!

Be not a negligent hearer of the Word of God, but a faithful doer who is motivated to both pay attention to the Word and retain it. “…pay much closer attention to what you have heard.” This will change your entire life and relationships!

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