Neglecting your salvation.

     Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
     Hebrews 6:7,8 (NIV).

     Every spring we till a small piece of ground, and plant a garden. We get out there and pull weeds, hoe, water, fertilize, looking forward to the vegetables that we will enjoy in the fall. It was different this year. We were expecting another baby and it was hard for my wife to get out there like she wanted to. We also got serious about burning wood, and I spent most of my spare time cutting and splitting, trying to get a good jump on the winter.
     I still tried to find time to pull a few weeds, hoe a row of potatoes, get the soaker hose out there etc. as the summer went on however, we noticed that the weeds were begining to take over. It does not take long, a few days of neglect and you have a big problem in your garden. By the time it came to dig potatoes, I had to really look to find where my rows were!
     We felt bad, but consoled ourselves with the fact that we had some good reasons for not getting the job done right this year.
     It is the same with our salvation. the writer of Hebrews warns us about neglecting our salvation (2:1-3). This letter is not written to lost people, warning them not to put off getting saved, it is written to born again Christians who were on the verge of falling away from their faith!  Jesus tells us, in the parable of the sower, what the thorns and thistles represent (Matt 13:7,22). The worries of life, and the deceitfulness of riches, like weeds, will choke out and destroy our spiritual life. It may not be a deliberate falling away, something that we do in an instant, but a gradual drifting away, as life's cares and pursuits spring up in the freshly tilled soil of our hearts. A little neglect in the garden leads to failure at harvest time. A little neglect of our spiritual life leads to a failure that will last for an eternity. Life will always throw cares and worries our way, and the world has plenty of things to tempt us with. We need to stand firm in our faith, casting our cares upon Christ. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world. This is how we pull up these spiritual weeds, by faith. No one intends to backslide, no one plans to fall away, it gradually happens before we realize what is going on. We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away (Heb 2:1 NIV). How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? vs 3. Do not neglect your salvation!