No Other Rock

Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him.

We humans sure know how to screw things up. I am continually reminded, mostly through my daughter, of this fact. She is all of three years and three months old. As a parent, there is a natural inclination to “teach” her to do things.

The trouble is, there is also a natural (and unknowing) inclination to teach her to do things the same way I do. For whatever reason, we all seek out methods of comfort and stick to that comfort zone no matter what. It works and that’s all that matters. So we, of course, want to pass that comfort onto our children.

In the process, we are telling them to “think how we think” rather than let them experience things for themselves. In essence, we are trying to close their minds to any way of thinking but our own, forcing them to miss out as a result.

That’s what today’s devotion speaks of. To “consider carefully how you listen” is a caution. It’s a caution to gospel-hardened hearers . . . to the prejudiced . . . to those who are perpetually criticizing.

How many times have we gone to a church service and left thinking to ourselves that there was not one single morsel of preaching that was beneficial? Baxter sums this up well when he says;

As soldiers gradually develop an ability to sleep through the noise of the battle zone, so these Gospel-hardened hearers sleep now through the most stirring warnings of coming jusdgement and the most moving recitals of redeeming love.

Today, my prayer for you and I is that we will stop allowing ourselves to reject God’s messages before we even hear them.