Hearing God requires listening better!

THE STORY OF JESUS: Matthew 13:1-9
“Whoever has ears, let them hear.” (Matthew 13:1-9)
Jesus has a large audience, a perfect opportunity to WOW them with His wisdom.
Instead He tells them a simple little story, and essentially says ‘figure it out!’
If my messages were this cryptic, I’d lose my job.
But Jesus wasn’t trying to keep a job, or to pander to the masses.
He needed His message to get into their hearts, not just their ears.
Everyone in that crowd had ears, almost all of them could hear… technically.
But Jesus is challenging them to active listening, to dig into what they hear.
What does this story mean, what is its point, its meaning, how does it relate to you?
I find many people read the bible today without ears to hear, or eyes to see.
They look at the reading, but quickly decide it makes no sense, or is confusing.
(Sounds like the whispers of Satan, he did the same thing to Adam and Eve).
We need to trust that there is a meaning there, and we need to listen deeper.
If we didn’t have the explanation of this parable, could we figure it out?
I’ll give you a clue; its about how we hear and receive the message from God…
My sense is that the problem is not the bible, but us; we’ve become lazy.
We pay someone else to interpret the bible for us.
So long as we have butts to sit, and wallets to pay, someone else will do the digging.
We need more Berean Christians: “Now the Berean Jews… received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (Acts 17:11)
Try it, take a passage today, and spend the day really digging in for yourself.
If you have ears to hear, you will hear!
What do you sense the Lord saying to you?
PRAYER
Lord, this parable is actually about how we hear the message. May we do more than loosely receive the seed, may we embrace it eagerly and seek Your wisdom from it!