Articles
Take Care How You Listen
Today marks the start of what we anticipate being an uplifting, admonishing and fruitful week. Our guest speaker will present 8 lessons from the word of God during our gospel meeting that will both challenge us to get better and grow closer to God but also encourage us to turn to God for salvation if we haven’t yet done so. While there is a great amount of responsibility on the individual that will be presenting these lessons, there is equally a great amount of responsibility on those who will be in the audience paying attention to what will be spoken and preached from the bible. In Luke 8:18, Jesus encouraged His audiences to “take care how you listen” as He spoke parables and teachings suited to salvation and spiritual growth. I want to encourage all of you this week as we enter our gospel meeting to “Take care how you listen.”
As members in the audience, we will be held accountable for the kind of effort we put forth in paying attention to God’s word (not only this week but at all other times). There is a significant difference in just hearing something and listening to it. Hearing requires very little concentration and effort as the words leave the mouth coming to our ears. Listening on the other hand requires our undivided attention and much effort as we seek to apply into our lives what is being taught so we can be better for God but also better for each other.
As a result, we must first of all ensure that we do our best to rid ourselves of any distractions that may affect the way we listen and pay attention to the word of God. This can be especially difficult when our lives are plagued with so many different things that are burdening, painful and hurtful. The positive to these things is that it pushes us to come closer to God for His help and His guidance. The more we rid ourselves of these distractions, the more we will learn how we can overcome them and endure through them as we listen carefully to God’s word.
Secondly, we need to put preparation into our listening. When I was in college, I would observe that many of the college students would stay up very late Saturday night often into the wee hours of Sunday morning. They would get very little sleep and then go to worship services hoping to learn something or to be of some help to someone. That mindset didn’t work. I know this, because I tried it a couple times. I would often find myself struggling to stay awake during worship and leaving right after the services ended so I could sleep. Not only did I wrong God but I also wronged the brethren.
One cannot focus properly on God’s word if they aren’t preparing to do so. This includes getting the rest we need and foregoing things that are not as important as worshipping God and nourishing our souls with the bread of life. We put a lot of preparation into things that sometimes are nowhere as important as God’s word. How much more should we be preparing ourselves to concentrate on the message that is guaranteed to change us and make us better if we allow it to? This leads me to our final point.
When we come together to hear the word of God being preached, we must rid ourselves of any pre-conceived notions we may have. We may be tempted to think that we already know everything about the bible and that the speaker can’t relate anything that we don’t already know and therefore we tune him out. This is wrong and incredibly unwise. There is always something we can learn from God’s word and there is always a message we need to be reminded of even if we have heard it before.
The other aspect to having pre-conceived notions is that we will be tempted to disagree with the bible if it doesn’t meet our standards, feelings or conclusions. Ridding ourselves of our pre-conceived conclusions will allow the gospel to do exactly what it was intended to do: change our lives and save us from our sins!
If we fail get rid of any pre-conceived notions we have or we just don’t want to do it, we will never receive the grace God wants to impart to us and the reward it will ultimately grant us if we are willing to just let the gospel do its job. It may hurt our pride to let go of our pre-drawn conclusions but it may end up saving our souls and granting us life eternal. Which would you prefer?
This week is an excellent opportunity to strengthen our relationship with God and His people but we need to take care to how we are listening. This is the key to whether we grow and get better or digress and get worse. So, I would encourage all of us to listen to the words of Jesus and leave the distractions behind. May we put effort and preparation into how we listen to God’s word. May we seek to swallow our pride and come to God in humility by listening to the truth and removing all the pre-conceived notions we may have. Are you taking care to how you listen?
