“Whoever has ears, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Revelation 3:6

I was talking to a dear friend the other day.  She called for a quick minute, which really means at least an hour…  And she told me some truths I desperately needed to hear.  You see, I have been in a state of not understanding; apparently my hearing has been clogged and this led me to be very judgmental towards someone, putting ALL accountability on him. And no matter what I did, when my thoughts turned toward this person and his words, I was judgmental at best and hostile at worst.  I even prayed that I would stop with the judgements because near this phone call I had understood that that is exactly what I had been doing.

But the truth is a whole part of the so-called blame goes onto the hearer of what he has been saying.  My friend went on to tell of a sermon she had heard at church.  It was all about your words and hurting other people with your words.  Then she had gone out to lunch with a group of people where the topic landed on your ethnicity.  And naturally one of the people present started to make fun of some ethnicities… you know, like Pollock jokes and such.  Now, you may say that’s just normal, everybody makes jokes the rabbi the priest jokes, etc.  But if your joking makes someone uncomfortable and is over the top, you shouldn’t be doing it.  You never know who you might be hurting in the process.

 

The whole point of this story is to say that we go to church, hear a fabulous sermon and then leave it there.  But God says, hear and your soul will live.  And hearing means doing, or not doing depending on the Word heard.  In this particular case, the person obviously didn’t actually HEAR the word.  Or, if they heard it, it wasn’t taken to heart and applied to their life.  Proverbs 23:19 says, “Listen, my son, and be wise, And direct your heart in the way.”  God definitely instructs us to be wise and apply it to our lives.  

To be fair, when I hear a Word that needs to be applied to my life, that’s exactly the place where the devil comes in.  He tries to make me forget the Word, or refers me back to my old thought and behavior patterns.  So maybe this was the case in this instance.

But the point is still clearly made.  “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.”  James 1:22.

And how do we “Be Wise”?  By the renewing of our minds and by asking god for wisdom. (James 1:5)  So let’s start today by renewing our minds in God’s Word and applying it properly to our lives…