The Sorrow Of Neglect

I often fear I will live my life so high, filled with the pleasures Christ has given me, that I neglect my loving Savior. Or that I will get so busy in His work, I will neglect to give Him the correct amount of praise He deserves! Or I will get so exhausted in the battle of coming to His understanding, I neglect to read and pray and show Him my love. My greatest fear is not Satan himself, it is simply spiritual neglect!! Neglect in its self simply is giving insufficient attention to something that deserves it. Like to ignore, or overlook or forget about. I am terrified to think that I fall into this spiritually.

In the book of Hebrews 2:3 we can read the verse that is the reason for my hating neglect. It reads, “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” All throughout the book of Hebrews the writer is dealing with the issue of neglect. Spiritual neglect always brings forth backsliding, and backsliding always issues in spiritual death!! How shall we escape, if we neglect?! The reason the writer, which I believe is Paul, was writing to this well biblically schooled Hebrew church about neglect, was because they had began to lose their conviction. This is where the Church of America has come today. When neglect sets in, one of the very first things we lose is conviction!! We start to blend just a little to much with the flesh. They no longer had that burning hunger and thirst after righteousness. Their thoughts was no longer upon what I can do for my Savior, but what can my Savior do for me. Losing conviction always starts in small ways. Remember when you first became born again, how you use to humble yourself down and fall to your knees and pray everyday? Remember how you would rather read the word of God more than watch the TV and play video games, and play for hours on the internet? Remember when you use to come to worship and you would already be in the presence of God before you walked into the church? I am writing a message to me as much as anyone. Remember when it use to be so real? But now something just seems to be dying. Carelessness has taken over and now rules with a iron fist. Your bible reading, praying, hearing God, it all is just a memory in your mind. You still carry the banner of Salvation, and yes people still see it sometimes. But your soul seems to be freezing while setting next to the fire. How shall we escape, if we neglect?

The sad thing is we as the body of Christ have mostly came to this place of neglect. We must be broken for this, for a broken and contrite spirit God will not deny. Let us either enter sorrow now, or later when it is forever to late. We cannot escape if we neglect this wonderful salvation we know is real. Sorrow is a deep distress, sadness, or regret especially for the loss of someone or something loved. We are losing our salvation simply because of neglect. We must come to true repentance and sorrow.

Lord, forgive me for my selfishness! Forgive me for my neglect!! I see my mistakes. I humbly ask you to show me Grace once more. Help me come to true sorrow for neglect.

The question you must ask yourself Christian is this… are you living in spiritual neglect? And are you in sorrow if you are?!