![]() Listen to everything he tells you infers action. Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from their people” ( Acts 3:22-23). “For Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people you must listen to everything he tells you. In other words, we must discipline ourselves to be selective in order to grow, overcome, and glorify God.” We may not always get it right, but one faithful step forward at a time, God honors our obedience to follow Him to the best of our ability. Ritenbaugh writes, “The lesson is that, not only must we first consciously turn on our hearing to be converted, but we must also selectively choose from almost all we hear and thoughtfully accept or reject. “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Abrupt noises may startle us, but they don’t necessarily change our direction permanently. Hearing something doesn’t always jerk us into motion. But listening – being slow to speak and slow to anger – produces the good fruit of the Holy Spirit. Like James says, human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. There are moments in my personal life when my soul is unsettled, I simply say the name of Jesus out loud until my soul calms down! ![]() We can back down from our natural human reaction of offense, defense, anger, and stormy emotions, and allow the peace that surpasses all understanding to activate in our lives. Listening requires us to be “slow to speak and slow to become angry.” It’s human to have this immediate reaction, but living our lives within the love of Christ allows us the power of pause. We can allow our initial reactions to spew forth, which will often result in thunderclouds of anger, some flashes of rage, and then a mess of regret and hurt to clean up in the aftermath of the storm. In those moments, James is cautioning, we have a choice as to what to do with what our ears are hearing. When we hear something which unsettles our souls, we often find ourselves in a fight for the peace and joy we have in Christ Jesus! We turn over words in our minds, and allow downward spiraling thoughts to spin. The apostle James wrote, “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires” ( James 1:19-20). Listening to His call on our lives leads us to the “more than we can ever ask for or imagine” plans God has for our lives. The assurance of our faith is built upon the firm foundation of the Living Word of God. Our faith requires active obedience, not just a good feeling of fleeting happiness. It is only through Jesus that we come to the Father, and not by hearing, but by turning to listen. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known” ( John 1:17-18). “For the law was given through Moses grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ![]() When we listen to the Word of God, it suggests we are tuned in to the Spirit’s work in our lives. It’s the alive and active Word of the Living God. It isn’t a collection of stories for us to hear. Many hear of Christ Jesus, but not all listen. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” ( Matthew 11:27).įaith in Christ is an active decision. “All things have been committed to me by my Father. We can hear something passively, but when we listen, we are engaged. Perhaps this is why God gave us two ears and one mouth in the hopes that we’d listen twice as often as we speak.” This type of listening assumes a reaction. “We can deceive ourselves so easily, so to avoid that, he suggests we listen to increase our learning and how to apply that learning, called wisdom,” Jack Wellman explains. “That’s the best guidance you’ll ever get. In the verse above, listen, which in the New American Translation of the Bible is the word, hear, means: to hear, listen, obey.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |