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What are we to do? It all starts with listening. From there, as a follower of Jesus, we are to speak the Word of Jesus to unbelievers. Jesus promises that they are not just listening to us. They are hearing the words of Jesus.

God’s goal: People are called upon to listen attentively to God’s word, to his Son and to words of wisdom. Followers must not only listen to God’s word but also put it into practice. Those who refuse to listen to God’s word or to correction are condemned. They are rejecting Jesus.

Am I listening? Am I rejecting Jesus?

  • Later the Master [Jesus] selected seventy and sent them ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he intended to go. He gave them this charge … “The one who listens to you, listens to me. The one who rejects you, rejects me. And rejecting me is the same as rejecting God, who sent me.” | Luke 10:16 (The Message)
  • Who hears Jesus? The sheep hear Jesus. Those who are willing to follow the voice of the Shepherd hear Jesus. “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.” John 10:27 (NASB)

“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Jesus said this a lot. Jesus said it over and over. Jesus knows that not everyone is going to listen. Many will end up rejecting our message. They are not rejecting us. They are rejecting Jesus. By rejecting Jesus, they are rejecting God.

What is important? I should pay attention to listening to the messengers of Jesus who give me the good news of Jesus. God is in a good mood. Jesus wants me to experience joy.

  • The Apostle John alerts me “They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” 1 John 4:5–6 (NASB)
  • Is it about listening? What about “doing”? Jesus clears that up as well. I don’t just have to “listen”. Jesus said, “Blessed [happy] are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” Luke 11:28 (NASB) And Jesus said it another way. “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.“ Matthew 7:24–27 (NASB)
  • “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has at once forgotten what kind of person he was.” ~James | James 1:22–24 (NASB)

 

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