ears to hear

If you read our KCC eNews, then you may have already read this, or perhaps, you already knew it existed and deleted it before reading it, because you didn't care.  But if you don't care about what I write about, why did you come to my blog in the first place?  What's gotten into you?  Who am I even talking to?  I'd better press on.

I am on a tri-weekly rotation with our other two pastors now to write a column for our eNews.  It lends to my blogging laziness, of course, because it does scratch my writing itch.  But why not share it with you, my faithful readers?

We have been working through a sermon series called, "Letters from God," using the 7 letters to the 7 churches in Revelation.  If you've read that passage of the Bible, you probably noticed this phrase occurring a lot: let him who has ears to hear hear what God is saying.  Jesus was speaking truth to His people, and it wasn't all sunshine and unicorns.  He was laying down some pretty heavy stuff.  So He challenged them to have ears to hear what He was saying.

When we encounter the Word of God, and it sheds light on areas of our lives that need some tidying up, we can generally react one of three ways.  First, we can be deaf to what it is saying, and not realize how much it actually applies to us.  That's certainly not having ears to hear.  The next two reactions both include hearing, but they lead to completely different outcomes.  When a person hears the Word of God taught, and it makes them uncomfortable due to sin in his life, he can choose to be convicted over it or offended by it.

Often times, as Christians, we choose to be offended.  We pretend like the person teaching the Bible was out of line, because it is easier than acknowledging that our lives our out of line with the Bible.  But if we truly have ears to hear what the Spirit of God is saying to us, we will hear what the Bible says, be convicted by the sin and inconsistencies in our lives, and allow the Holy Spirit to work in us and through us.

Do you have ears to hear?