“TAKE HEED LEST YOU FALL”

Whatever lofty spiritual plane we imagine we are on, remember, Adam was in Paradise when he fell. Before our increased knowledge and religious experiences make us overly self-confident, recall that Solomon wrote three books of Scripture, he actually gazed upon the glory of God, yet he fell. Yes, even in our deepest worship of the Almighty we must not forget, in long ages past, Lucifer himself was once in Heaven, pouring out praise to God. “Take Heed Lest You Fall.”

“For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end.” There are many such scriptures which point to salvation as a process with a  past, present and future aspect: We were saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved… if we hold our first newborn confidence and original assured expectation firm and unshaken to the end. For the Lord is able to keep those who want to be kept, to the end.

It is not easy to deliberately turn away from God for His love is relentless and His mercy overwhelms us with our unworthiness. Scripture warns the saints about the power of unbelief to turn a heart to evil, that we can be “hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” Repeated sin can harden our heart against God. Sin is missing God’s mark, His expectations, as defined in the Bible. And sin is simply unbelief, for if we really believed we would never deliberately sin. Hardened hearts do not fear God. That bears repeating: Hardened hearts sin without remorse or any regard to the fear of God, literally “departing from the living God.” Hardened hearts do not fear God!  

The real issue here is the direction of our hearts. We must perceive and recognize God’s ways and become progressively better, deeper and more intimately acquainted with them. And we must not let our hearts be led astray by the enticements of sin.

You see, we (saints) all sin, including yours truly. So when we sin we must ask for the forgiveness our Lord died to freely provide – recognizing His mercies are new every morning – coming boldly to His Throne of grace -- partaking of the grace which is in Christ. We must be steadfastly confident of God’s love and His willingness to forgive when we are truly repentant. We must not neglect our salvation nor repeatedly harden our hearts when God speaks, rather we must “hear His voice” and heed His commands. “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall (into sin).”

TAKE HEED: IT IS A COMMAND FROM GOD!

(Heb. 3:7-19; 1 Cor. 10:12)