In October 2004, almost one year after being married, I finally began to truly use my degree in a job/career. When I graduated May 2001 I had worked for a dial-up Internet provider for about two years using my technical knowledge from experience, early and minimal web design skills learned while working for that company, and some of my college knowledge. But at the end of November 2003 I lost that job due to managements’ poor ownership and mismanagement of finances. And until I worked for an actual career job, I worked selling cars, fast food, and even tried a small lawnmowing business. I was grateful for the work but it was not what I went to college for nor the direction to apply my natural abilities/talents. When I was finally hired to that company in October 2004, I was eager to truly utilize my knowledge and skills and to couple that with my enthusiasm. I was newly married still, had been a father also for almost a year, had a baby for a couple of months, and the future looked great. It didn’t take long for the owner to discover that I was not a software developer but my knowledge, skills, and desire to learn afforded me the opportunity to learn and do many other things that financially benefitted the company. I did more website design which taught me more things as I worked there; I did internet marketing; I did a lot of IT work. And even though that the company advertised and primarily promoted itself as a software development company, it was easy to see that one aspect that generated considerable sales and was certainly paying for at least my paycheck was what I brought to the table. It was early January 2007 when I was called to the owner’s office. The company had drifted so much from its original business idea to almost two separate companies. And because he (the owner) wanted to go back to his original business plan, my services were no longer needed…effective immediately.
If a company—a startup—is properly established, one of the very first things the owner/s will create is a business plan and included in that business plan is the company motto or mission statement. And due to time pressure, the need to make money, and exploration for other revenue streams a company may drift from that mission statement. A company that started well with a clear vision can develop a blurred understanding for what it does years later…even to the point that the company has completely lost their purpose and has to close or is bought out by a competitor. These businesses drifted.
After a few years of marriage my parents bought a junk home for taxes and proceeded to do a remodel. The original part of the home was two rooms. More rooms were added prior to my parents’ ownership when it was moved to the land it was sitting with additional rooms and an enclosed back porch built. Disappointingly with things added to the house, some things didn’t marry well and the foundation that once was easily identified and built to last had additional things built and for the sake of time and money can be added with inferior materials thus making the newer parts worse than the aged original part of the house that my dad discovered. The true foundation drifted.
The writer of the book of Hebrews (whom I believe was Barnabas for a number of reasons) lays a solid foundation in chapter one for whom God is and why Jesus was sent. It establishes perspective and intent of and from God. Chapter 2 begins with a transitional word therefore and so just beginning with chapter 2 and to ignore chapter 1 would be foolish indeed for not taking context into consideration. Hebrews 2:1 NKJV says, “Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away” (emphasis added). The writer continues in verses two through four, “For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will?”
A number of other Bible translations for verse one include the word drift or to drift away. This is important to note that the word drift in the various translations and in the King James Version is the word slip carries a word picture of something important floating downstream and if we are not careful and can go right passed us without notice. Or another word picture is that someone is struggling from drowning in a flowing river and rather than taking notice and tossing a line to drag that person to safety against the flow of the current, we ignore that person or allow that person to go right by. We miss something…and sometimes we missing something critical or crucial.
So what can drift or can be missed? More importantly how can we let it drift away? There are a number of reasons. Jesus declared that one putting their hand the plow and looking back is not fit for the Kingdom. In the same portion of scripture Jesus admonishes or challenges those who are called or who desire to follow Him to do so without excuse because those who wanted to go had other things to take care of first. What was once a passion (a fire) grows colder (a simplified understanding of the second law of thermodynamics). It can also happen in a marriage. There is a fire and everything seems new and exciting before and shortly after the rings go on the finger. But years later, having children, taking on jobs, and times of loss can cause that passion to become just two adults living together and trying to survive the trying times and if fortunate enough to keep the marriage intact for the sake of the children.
Vision is the same way. For the Christian, Jesus established a number of things but primarily it can be shortened to two things: have a fire to live for God with everything we have got (which means to cut loose anything that can hold us back from pursuing that) and to love others (which means not a tolerance but an endurance/longsuffering and a motivation for those who are not connected to God/forgiven by God to become not just forgiven but to fulfill God’s plan for their lives as well). And like with marriage, a business, schooling, etc. the passion is lost, the desire to keep learning wanes, and we just want to tread water. Status quo is easy. Sitting in the same seats at church and doing the same songs and doing nothing more than just maybe attend a prayer meeting or so once a week is good enough. Some of us may not have drifted away from salvation yet, but we are hardly the Christian we once were. And certainly not growing as a Christian ought to be. Standards, principles, promises made to God, the excitement to do anything for God gives way to “I’m too busy”, “I have more important things to do”, “Let someone else younger or a new believer do this”, or “Let the Called person do it to get the glory/recognition”.
January 17, 1997 was one of the most important dates in my life. It was the day that I asked Jesus to forgive me of my sin (meaning original sin and my personal sins) and to become my Lord and Savior. I didn’t know how to describe it. I didn’t know any Bible verses; I had never read the Bible at all; I had extremely little church background. But something was different and certainly different than anything I had tried other times before. Months later my very first ministry that was asked of me (I will exclude the time or two that I was asked to help in a drama skit) was to take out the trash from the bathrooms at the church. No title, no financial compensation, no badge…just empty the trash from one trash can to the other, take out the full bag to the dumpster and put new bag/s into the trash can/s. And despite later adding taking attendance and helping with sound and the overhead projector, I still took out the trash dutifully until it became a normal task for the cleaning ladies to attend to instead. If asked today to do it, I would still gladly do it without any hesitation. I say that now because I first had an excitement and gratitude and now I have gratitude. But there was a period of time in between then and now that I did things, but they were not done for the right or godly reasons. They were done because I was asked. Things were done to impress someone else—headship or a girl. My attendance at as many things as possible was to prove that I was faithful or more faithful than others. And eventually my attitude stunk more than those trash bags I used to take out.
Although the testimony shows a simplistic example, we, too, can drift or allow other things to slip away that were once important. Prayer—talking to and with God, the One who created everything and the One who had mercy on our souls to forgive us—becomes time occupied saying things about people who truthfully we care less about than we do about ourselves and our desires. That is if we say anything at all beyond muttering a list of “fix this, heal that, forgive her, give me” and pepper it with some “mama roada Honda” and some Christianese. Fidgeting with our phones and getting up to attend to anything else grabs our attention away from praying. If allowed and alone and we don't fall asleep during prayer, prayers can become gripe sessions to God. Bible reading—another way to know God’s will and His heart as well as receive guidance and direction for our lives—becomes a chore like washing clothes/dishes; something we don’t care to do but it has to be done. An excitement that Jesus saved us and we were eager to tell others and compel them to come to church becomes being too busy with our own lives and/or we are too embarrassed of our church, pastor, or Jesus to invite them (but we are eager to accept an invitation to go to a date, movie, dance, BBQ, or whatever else with enthusiasm). I remember when I was early saved that there was an excitement to invite others to church and a willingness to bring people. Visitors’ guards/walls were down or more relaxed because they knew at least one person in church (the person who invited them or brought them). And when vision was imparted that people in another city can know Jesus. People in another nation can know Jesus. And it can happen from the little city Kingsville. Despite being part of a world-wide Fellowship, we took ownership of that vision. Now, I cannot recall—outside of conference sermons or maybe discipleship classes—any sermons preached that inspire people to grab on the vision that God has for their lives and run with it (to fulfill Habakkuk 2:2-3 which says, “Then the LORD answered me and said: ‘Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.”) That our lives can count and accomplish. Sermons across churches are about attitude, condemnation, worry, fear, don’t fornicate, don’t miss the rapture (or be ready for the rapture to avoid having to be a true Christian or at least continue to endure with the world; kinda like a get out of jail free card from life/responsibility), and live a better life now or be a better person. None of those things are evil. But no vision is imparted. No impregnation for God’s will that we—individually and collectively—can be used in a unique but powerful way to reach even if it is just one more person.
Now the concern for some churches is who will come to help pay our loan? How many people can we fit in a photo to look good on our social media page? How much will my effort cost because if the other person (sinner, new convert) is too much like work, then let’s cut our losses (let them go to hell) and move on to maybe someone else with less sin or baggage in their lives but who will have more money to give to make the church continue doing what it is doing? Seeking God’s direction gives way to “here we go doing another outreach that we will pass out 1000 flyers that cost the church money and no one will come and so how can we pay for the preacher and the bills incurred”. We cry out God give me sinners but in the back of our mind we truthfully want only certain types of sinners—happily married, obedient kids, great job that allows them to not be at work but to do anything that is needed at the church at any time, ones who overabundantly give in the offering plate every service, and ready to go to the four corners of the globe after one conference sermon. We want sinners that fulfill our desires and make us look good, not sinners that the Bible speaks of whom Jesus worked with.
And yet with all that drift, I cannot help but think of the very first miracle healing that Jesus did concerning the leaper recorded in the book of Matthew. This leaper gave no money. This leaper was not someone of stature or significance. This leaper didn’t even become an apostle and follow Jesus everywhere He went. But God touched this man not just his body but his heart. A dignity robbed, a life with his loved ones taken away, an inability to provide for his family, was completely restored in one beautiful moment (and if you ever watch Bruce Marchiano play Jesus in The Book of Matthew film it literally brings tears of joy to my eyes) and this man went home. Two women of poor reputation—the adulteress woman cast at Jesus’ feet and Mary who anointed Jesus and washed/wiped His feet with her tears and hair—became women who were no longer an outcast. No longer despised and rejected. They were forgiven. They were free. And through no command on Jesus’ part, they all genuinely (I am certain they all did this despite the Bible not sharing this detail) told others about Jesus. And one of them was at the cross and prepared Jesus’ burial. What do we genuinely do?
Pastor Joe Campbell recently challenged that without a vision, our hearts drift that what was behind us—past victories, numbers, money, flags on a wall, success or ministerial title OR worse sin and our former unsaved lives—becomes more attractive than what God can do or has ahead. I ask: do the signs, wonders, and miracles said in Hebrews 2 spoken of in Hebrews 1 and throughout the Old Testament—let alone what happened in the four Gospels and the book of Acts—seem less impressive and unattractive then when drinking, cussing, sleeping around, having the “friends” we once had seems to be more attractive? Does fruitfulness—with work and faith involved—become too much like work that the Holy Spirit in and through our lives is nothing more than saying “mama roada Honda” during prayer and at church from time to time? Fruitfulness isn’t just only converts. Fruitfulness also comes by the fruits of the Spirit active and alive in our lives. Fruitfulness is also when the gifts and ministries of the Holy Ghost are active in our lives…and not just for the pastor or select preachers but available to all who desire them…and not for our glory either.
What was it that God spoke to us? What was it that God showed us? What did God do once in our lives that maybe has grown dormant? What did God Call/call us to do and we laid it down or worse we walked away from it? Will we be a people whom when Jesus woefully asked in Luke 18:8, “will He really find faith on the earth?” find us not just doing things but doing what He desired us to do in love, obedience, gratitude, and humility? Will we decrease—our plans, our vision, our desires, our needs/wants, our ministry, our families, our careers, our schooling—so that God may increase? Further, when people receive vision (and stop drifting), matters of sin, compromise, condemnation, worry, etc. will naturally drop off. There won't be an attraction to sin and the world. Lastly, will we be like Caleb who said these words recorded in Joshua 14 (paraphrased), I was forty years old when I brought back word to Moses as it was in my heart. “And now, behold, the LORD, has kept me alive, as He said, these forty-five years…As yet I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me; just as my strength was then, so now is my strength…Now therefore, give me this mountain of which the LORD spoke in that day…” Jesus said in John 4:35, “…Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!” Sins of the past, consequences from poor choices then, failure, death, abandonment, divorce, etc. is not us today and not our portion today and should not limit our future. There is a world out there. There are cities and nations who need not religion or fluff churches. Do we see and hear people’s cry in Beeville, Texas, in St. Joseph, Missouri, in Nuuk, Greenland, in Dandong, China, in Pyongyang, DPRK (and the hundreds of thousands of other cities and hundreds of nations) for a real change? Will they see vision? Will they see hope? Will they receive forgiveness from Jesus like we did? Will we sit on the banks of a flowing river and see the lost be swept away while we’re building our ministry or building our comfort? Will we take His vision that is plain on tablets and run (not walk, not “pray about it”, not let someone else do it, but we RUN)? Will our hearts drift another day? Eternity cannot wait.