Pastor’s Corner: “Spiritual Neglect”
Hebrews 2:2-3 (NASB) – 2 For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, 3 how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?
A person does not fall into carnality overnight. They do not lapse into carnality because he or she did one thing wrong. There is a pattern that takes time to establish. The carnal Christian is characterized by the neglect of spiritual matters.
The author of Hebrews was writing to a group of Jewish Christians who had turned their backs on faith. They were genuine Christians, but had demonstrated the neglect that is one of the first signs of carnality. To neglect simply means to show disinterest. It’s not that the Christian is doing a lot of wrong things, but it is evident that they are doing very little that’s right. Neglect is an act of passive disobedience rather than active disobedience. This Christian is not doing the things that are necessary to propel us down the road to spiritual growth and maturity.
About $2 billion worth of lottery prizes go unclaimed each year, according to researchers. (By the way, that isn’t an endorsement of the lottery.) God has given us something far greater than a lottery ticket, something worth far more than millions and millions of dollars. It is salvation. No wonder the Bible calls it “so great a salvation” (Hebrews 2:3 NKJV). God has placed the righteousness of Jesus Christ into our spiritual bank accounts, so to speak. This is true of every Christian. The apostle Paul wrote, “For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith” (Philippians 3:8–9 NLT).
When we neglect our great salvation, what are we really neglecting? Here’s what he is saying when he says, “Don’t neglect your great salvation!”
- Don’t neglect being loved by God.
- Don’t neglect being forgiven and accepted and protected and strengthened and guided by almighty God.
- Don’t neglect the sacrifice of Christ’s life on the cross.
- Don’t neglect the free gift of righteousness credited by faith.
- Don’t neglect the removal of God’s wrath and the reconciled smile of God.
- Don’t neglect the indwelling Holy Spirit and the fellowship and friendship of the living Christ.
- Don’t neglect the radiance of God’s glory in the face of Jesus.
- Don’t neglect the free access to the throne of grace.
- Don’t neglect the inexhaustible treasure of God’s promises.
Passive, benign neglect opens the door to failure. Some marriages end in divorce not because there was an adultery committed, but because the husband sat in front of the TV too much. Some of us are going down the road to carnality not because we have committed gross sins, but because Satan has done just enough to keep us out of the Word of God and off our knees. The road to carnality starts with neglect—failure to do the things that are necessary for us to mature in our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
In His Grace,
Pastor Hamilton