-March 15, 2023-
Good morning, happy Wednesday,
“Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will taken from him.”
(Luke 8:18).
Yesterday we considered that we should take heed what we hear; today we will look at how we should hear. The former involves, the what we need to hear and not hear; and the latter how we should hear and how we should not hear. Both are extremely important in the Christian life. It is always good to compare Scripture to Scripture.
There are bad ways and good ways to hear. As to the bad ways we should avoid are: hearing without listening, hearing with a critical or judgmental spirit, hearing without obeying or applying what we hear, hearing with an insensitive heart, and hearing something so often that it doesn’t affect us. I have guilty of one or more of all them. These principles especially apply to reading the Bible and listening to a sermon or Bible Study.
On the positive side, we want to be aware of how we hear and take heed to the various messages. Consideration with concentration leads to reaction and response. Let us pray that God will open our hearts and ears to act on what we hear with godly fear. James 1:22-25 says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”
It is so important to prepare our hearts to hear and respond. It is easy to see what others need to do without applying it to ourselves. Instead of thinking or saying, “That was so good for So and So,” we should think and say, “That was a blessing to me, I really needed to hear that.” William MacDonald wrote, “The more we hear the Word of God without obeying what we hear, we become judiciously deafened. If we refuse to hear, we lose the capacity to hear. The best way to hear is reverently, obediently, and seriously. We should approach the Bible with the determination to do what it says, even if no one else is doing it.”
Have blessed day taking heed not only to what we hear, but also how we hear. Stay safe and healthy.
Hearing more to obey, and obeying to hear more,
Dean
Dean Allen's Daily Devotional 