PRAISE & PRAYER PROMPT ••• This is Day 3 of our week-long focus on the five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch.
Day 3–Hearing.
I have some strong opinions on this sense since so many equate hearing with listening.
But the sense is called hearing, so I picked a verse that uses that word…
But we’ll be talking about listening too!
With that said, let’s jump in.
Romans 10:17 says, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”
It circles back to what we talked about on Monday when we reviewed sight.
Jesus told Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29b).
Our belief isn’t based on what we see but on hearing, listening, understanding, and accepting the Gospel of Jesus.
With all of that, comes faith.
And that’s a good thing!
But (I warned you this was coming…) hearing and listening are two different things.
James spoke of this in James 1:22-25, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”
Did you get all that?
I had to read it twice.
To make it easier, let’s look at “The Message” translation—“Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like. But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life!—even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action.”
That’s what it is to be a hearer of the Word.
Hearing is an action word and when we hear, we react.
We can react in obedience or react through the denial of what we heard.
But if you proclaim faith in Jesus, hearing requires action.
Are you living your faith as a hearer or a hearer/doer?
Today, as you pray, thank God for the gift of hearing, and the privilege of hearing the Good News of Salvation.
Ask the Holy Spirit to help you hear His word and act on it through faith, obedience, and the fruit of His spirit.
