Vital signs- Thursday, January 4th, 2024

Occasionally when I was studying in college a lecturer would say, “This is going to be in the exam!” Immediately the class leaned in, people listened, and took notes with great focus. 

Why? The message was immediately relevant and important! 

Perhaps, the opposite experience is how passengers tend to listen to airline safety briefings—with headphones in! 

This is a contrast of attention versus inattention. 

The messages that angels delivered were important. Ignoring them often brought consequences! 

In Luke 1, Zechariah received a message from an angel that his wife, although advanced in years (code for she’s as old as your granny), would conceive and have a son. Zechariah’s doubt in the angel’s message meant he spent the nine months of his wife’s pregnancy mute!

Jesus is a superior messenger and has a better message, therefore, we ought to pay even more careful attention (2:1). The Bible you have in your hand is that message. Jesus himself came and delivered the message in the flesh (2:3). The apostles themselves heard and eye-witnessed it, all while God bore witness to it by miracles, signs and wonders (2:4). This is a trustworthy message, passed on by the apostolic witness. You can build your life on the Word of God! Truth is the foundation of our faith.

In a time where the authority and sufficiency of God’s word is under attack, it is vital that we cling to the word of God! Sometimes, due to either complacency or familiarity, we become inattentive to the Jesus message. 

‘Lord, give us ears to hear.'

”Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.“

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭2‬:‭1‬-‭9‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Team Wade loves you and is praying for you❤️👊