Today’s Reading: Luke 8:4-21
We all on occasion have a problem with listening. I read about a lady who had a hearing problem. One day she and her husband were driving from Tennessee to Little Rock, Arkansas. They were pulled over by a state trooper who asked if the husband knew how fast he was driving. The wife asked, “What did he say?” The husband replied, “HE ASKED IF I KNEW THAT I WAS SPEEDING.” Looking at the driver’s license the trooper said, “I see you’re not from around here.” The husband said, “No we are from Memphis.” The wife again asked, “What did you say?” The husband told her, “I SAID WE ARE FROM MEMPHIS.” The state trooper then commented, “You know, the meanest woman I ever met was from Memphis.” The wife again asked, “What did he say?” The husband replied, “HE SAYS HE THINKS HE KNOWS YOU!”
How many of you think that you are good listeners? They tell us women tend to be better listeners than men are. Two men were talking one day. One of them said, “My wife talks to herself a lot.” His friend answered, “Mine does, too, but she doesn’t know it. She thinks I’m listening.” Too often, we feel that we are listening what God is saying to us but we really hear only what we want to hear.
Jesus warns us in Luke 8:18 “Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they think they have will be taken from them.”
Peter says in his letter, 1 Peter 2:2, “like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.”
The Apostle says that we need to hunger for the Word of God as a baby hungers for milk. A healthy baby instinctively hungers for milk and demands it often. If that baby does not feed on milk, it will quickly become malnourished. Its development will be diminished.
A hunger for the Word of God, is evidence of spiritual life. The born-again Christian instinctively desires the truths of Scripture because it is their life-source. No spiritual growth will take place unless they are well-nourished in the Word. Thus, we need to hear the Word of God with an urgency and yearning consider carefully how we listen to it.