LISTENING

“Listen to me for a day, an hour, a moment. Lest I expire in my terrible wilderness, my lonely silence. O God, is there no one to listen.”

I want to share with you some material that I have used in teaching on the subject of “Listening.”   God gave us two ears and one tongue which indicate that we should listen more than we talk.  We are taught to talk but little is said about the ‘art of listening.’  We need to learn to listen to each other. “Silence is hard for a listener, its’ practice is at war with the tendency to ‘set things right’ which makes busy bodies of us all.”

Listening is involvement.- Empathy, entering in to their situation. Listening is loving – caring, understanding. Listening is the giving of undivided attention to another human being. Listening indicates to the person – you matter, you are important.

The Bible speaks of this in James 1:19: “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” Be careful what you hear.  Your salvation depends on it.  “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message and the message is heard through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17) Be careful whom you hear.  On the mountain of transfiguration, God told the disciples, “This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased. Listen to Him.”  (Matthew 17:5) “But in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son.” (Hebrews 1:2) Be careful to hear Jesus. “For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God,” (John 3:34)

Listen without giving advice. To listen correctly, we must find out what the individual thinks and feels  Ask: “What do you think you should do?” We are anxious to impress the person with our answers until we don’t really hear the questions. Listen without judging.   Each person must accept personal responsibility for their life. Listen actively.   Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6: 53-54) We must take Jesus and His teachings into our minds and hearts.  Jesus is talking about internalizing Him in us.

“We tear walls down by listening.  There is no understanding of each other without listening. Carl Rogers says that “Listening, rightly done, is the most significant thing you can do for a person.”

“A wise old owl lived in an oak. The more he saw, the less he spoke, and the less he spoke, the more he heard. Why can’t we be like that wise old bird?”

WONDERFUL

What one word would you use to describe Jesus?  Oh, there would be lots of adjectives to speak of Him.
The one I would use would be what Isaiah wrote:  “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given: and the government will be on his shoulders: and his name shall be called WONDERFUL Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  Isaiah 9:6   Let’s think about how wonderful Jesus is.

Jesus is wonderful in His birth.  He was born of a virgin.  The miracle of Christmas is not the natural birth of Jesus through Mary, but of the conception of the child in Mary by the Holy Spirit of God.  How else could this be, but that it is of God?

Jesus is wonderful in His life.  It was said of Jesus, “never a man so lived as He did.” Read the accounts of Jesus again and again and you will see that His enemies turned the fiercest searchlights of their hostile criticism upon Jesus.  Yet, “they found no fault in Him.”  They could not detect one flaw in His character.  The man, Jesus lived a perfect, flawless life.

Jesus is wonderful in His words.  “Never a man so spoke.”  He came with words to live by.  He is the authoritative voice of God.  God  said, “Listen to Him.” 

Jesus is wonderful in His unselfishness.  He bore our sins.  He went to His death because of us.  Isaiah said it, “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him. and by his wounds we are healed.”  Isaiah 53:5
Innocent, He went to His death on a cross. He died because He claimed to be God’s Son, sent to save mankind from their sins.

Jesus is wonderful in His resurrection.  He said, “Because I live, you can live also.”  The power of God that lifted Jesus from the grave, lifts us to new life.

Jesus is wonderful in His promise to return.  Jesus is coming back to receive us, the Christians, to Himself. He said, “I go and prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”  John 14:3

Perhaps, you have sung this chorus: “Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful…Isn’t Jesus, my Lord, wonderful…Eyes have seen, ears have heard, it’s recorded in God’s Word…Isn’t Jesus, my Lord, wonderful.”

BROKEN

The word ‘broken’ usually brings a negative image to our minds … a broken toy, a broken car, a broken computer, a broken fingernail, and even a broken glass hurricane shade.  But ‘brokenness’ before God has an entirely different meaning … and a very positive result.

When difficulties come to us and our life feels like it has broken into hundreds of pieces – – God has a specific purpose for allowing that hardship. God desires to bring every area of our lives into submission to Him and there are times that He must break us free from anything that is working against His divine plan.

So, if we are holding onto wrong relationships, wrong job situations, wrong habits – the ‘breaking’ process can be extremely painful. But the incredible thing is that in the midst of our brokenness, God’s power is demonstrated in the greatest way.

James 1:2-4 reminds us that when we have the difficult times in our life and are experiencing brokenness … God is using that journey to help us grow, mature, to become strong in our faith, and to become more like Him.  God doesn’t laugh at our brokenness … He wants to use it to draw us closer to Him!

 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance, perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2-4

There’s a worship song that comes to mind as I think of ‘brokenness’…

“Brokenness is what I long for.

Brokenness is what I need.

Brokenness is what You want from me.

So take my heart and form it.

Take my life – transform it.”

Our prayer and aim should be; God take me, break me, make me and mold me into what You would have me to be.

 

LOVE IS A VERB

On many occasions I have listened to an eloquent speaker and heard him rise to the heights of oratory and have thought, “How I wish I could preach like that man.”  How often I have listened to a learned man and said, “I wish I were that well educated.”  How often I have seen heroic missionaries go out to lands of  darkness and danger and said, “I wish I had that kind of faith.”
But, have I ever asked as I looked at Jesus, “I wish I could love like that man.”

Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will obey what I command.”  John 14:15

Love is a verb; it has to act, to express itself.  We must accept God’s love for us in Christ.  We must communicate such love to God and one another.  “We love because He first loved us.” I John 4:19
Also, we must love what God loves and that is people.   Jesus said, “My command is this: love each other as I have loved you.”  John 15:12

Oscar Hammerstein wrote in the “Sound of Music”:
“A bell is no bell til you ring it.
A song is no song til you sing it.
And love in your heart wasn’t put there to stay.
Love isn’t love til you give it away.”

The masterpiece on love is found in the Bible in I Corinthians chapter 13.  We call this the ‘Love Chapter’.
This chapter on love does not stand alone.  It links together chapters 12 and 14.  Chapter 12 deals with the division that is caused over speaking in tongues.  Some of the people who had such gifts were haughty, puffed up, thought themselves superior because of their supernatural gifts.  The 14th chapter explains how such gifts were to be used; to edify, build up, the church.  Such gifts were never given to disrupt the family of God, to cause division.  Now, right in the middle of this difficulty in the Church at Corinth, Paul writes concerning the only thing that will unite and that is LOVE.

“And now I will show you the most excellent way.  If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong, or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  LOVE NEVER FAILS.”        I Corinthians 13: 1-8a

May we love like Jesus loved.  God loves you.  Respond to His love with your love.