Excellent sayings

"Pay attention and turn your ear to the sayings of the wise;
    apply your heart to what I teach,
for it is pleasing when you keep them in your heart
    and have all of them ready on your lips.
So that your trust may be in the Lord,
    I teach you today, even you.
Have I not written thirty (excellent) sayings for you,
    sayings of counsel and knowledge,
teaching you to be honest and to speak the truth,
    so that you bring back truthful reports
    to those you serve?" - Proverbs 22:17-21

In a world saturated with information, social media and technology, it is very hard to hold people's attention for long. The writer of Proverbs 22 wants his readers to 'pay attention' to the sayings that are share because they are LIFE-giving. 

Jesus urged his hearers to listen to his parables and words, because they were also life-giving. Jesus had told them that he had come to give them 'Life in all its fullness."

If you had the attention of your friends and family, what would you want to tell them today?

"Pay attention to the beauty surrounding you." - Anne Lamott

"Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things; to the every day things nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon." - Booker T. Washington

Living in Grace

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11

“Are you listening to me? Really listening?" - Matthew 11:15 (Message)

There are two remarkable parts in Matthew 11 for me (amongst many others). When you read it in the Message, we are asked a probing question by Jesus - "Are we listening? Really listening?" 

Lent is certainly a time of listening in to the things of the Spirit. And so, I ask all of us the same question today - "are we listening to the voice of Jesus?" Not just hearing, but actually LISTENING.

Later on in the same chapter, Jesus seems to suggest that the mysteries of God are concealed from those who think they are clever. It is only the humble and ordinary people who will truly discover the gifts of God, because they realise their great need of them.

^25-26 Abruptly Jesus broke into prayer: “Thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. You’ve concealed your ways from sophisticates and know-it-alls, but spelled them out clearly to ordinary people. Yes, Father, that’s the way you like to work.”

“There's a lot of difference between listening and hearing.” - G. K. Chesterton 

Living in Grace
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A new take on Obedience

This morning I discovered a slightly new take on the topic of Obedience. It may not seem like a huge revelation to many others, but it struck a chord with me today. Obedience simply means 'being a listener to God.' Let me share the paragraph I was reading and see what you think:

"Jesus learned obedience from what he suffered. This means that the pains and struggles of which Jesus became a part made him listen more perfectly to God ... Entering into the suffering of the poor is the way to become obedient, that is, a listener to God." - Henri Nouwen

Sometimes we need to go through difficult times in order for our senses to be in tune with the Divine voice of Jesus. We should desire to become 'listeners to God.' Once we hear the voice of God then we can know what we should do and which way to go.

“Our failure to hear His voice when we want to is due to the fact that we do not in general want to hear it, that we want it only when we think we need it.” - Dallas Willard

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The voice of the crowd...

Sometimes people are quite cruel in the way they speak to us or about us. Often it is because they want to make themselves look better or try and prove that they are superior to others. The voice of the crowd can make us lose confidence in our abilities or in our God-given purpose.  Take this scripture passage as an example - Sennacherib's men tried their hardest to strike doubt and fear into the minds of the Israelites, calling out all kinds of lies and threats. They made the fateful error of ridiculing Yahweh and claiming that God was just like all the other 'fake' gods.

2 Chronicles 32:16-18 -^"Sennacherib’s officers spoke further against the Lord God and against his servant Hezekiah. ¹⁷ The king also wrote letters ridiculing the Lord, the God of Israel, and saying this against him: ‘Just as the gods of the peoples of the other lands did not rescue their people from my hand, so the god of Hezekiah will not rescue his people from my hand.’ ¹⁸ Then they called out in Hebrew to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to terrify them and make them afraid in order to capture the city. ¹⁹ They spoke about the God of Jerusalem as they did about the gods of the other peoples of the world – the work of human hands."

Remember that the first voice worth listening too is the voice of Christ. Jesus seeks to speak TRUTH, HOPE and LOVE into our souls.

The crowds may shout louder, but they often don't have our best interests at heart.

"The longest sword;

The strongest lungs,

The most voices,

Are false measures of TRUTH." - Benjamin Whichcote

Living in Grace

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Heads Up!

We use this saying when we want people to notice something or when we desire to get their attention. For example we may say the following: 
"I am giving you a Heads up that the sale ends on Friday." - This gives the other person a warning that the sale is coming to an end and that we need to make a plan to get there.

Often we are so caught up or distracted with our commitments that we need a reminder or Heads Up! In the Bible, God gives the Israelites a heads up when he urges them....

Deuteronomy 32:46 - “Take to heart all the words of warning I have given you today. Pass them on as a command to your children so they will obey every word of these instructions.

Psalm 81:8 - “Listen to me, O my people, while I give you stern warnings. O Israel, if you would only listen to me!

But sadly, we are often not always eager to listen to the warnings God gives us - we think we know better. As Solomon puts it:

Proverbs 5:12 -You will say, “How I hated discipline! If only I had not ignored all the warnings!

What 'Heads up' is the spirit giving to us today? Will we listen to this warning or do we think we know better?

Living in Grace
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Listening is the beginning of prayer

"God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer." - Mother Theresa

This is such a simple, yet profound idea. So often we begin our prayer times with our list and then we try and wait for God to reply. But, what if we changed this whole thing around and actually listened first? Maybe our prayers would take on a different slant?

I am just thinking out aloud....what do you think?

Living in Grace
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Listen to the Silence

 

"The word LISTEN contains the same letters as the word SILENT." - Alfred Brendel

Sometimes we just need to be silent in order to listen to the voice of God. That may mean even stopping our 'shopping list' prayers and simply standing in the presence of Jesus.

Stop!

Be Still!

LISTEN.....

Luke 10:39 - "She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said."

Proverbs 18:33 -  "To answer before listening— that is folly and shame."

Have we got into the unhealthy habit of speaking too much? Perhaps it is time to listen to what God is saying to us?

Living in Grace
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Listening versus hearing

I had an album playing on my phone this morning when suddenly I noticed a song that seemed new. It struck me as being odd, because I had "heard" this album a few times before, but had never noticed this particular song. Then it struck me - we are often hearing things, but we seldom listen to what is being said.

You may be wondering if there is actually a difference between 'hearing' and 'listening' - I think there is a massive difference. And auditory neuroscientist, Seth S. Horowitz, would agree with me. He argues that the difference between the two lies in one thing - attention. Hearing is a 'passive' thing and our brain/ears can hear many things during the day, but 'listening' is an active exercise that requires focus. This explains why many of us men can "hear" the instruction to stop shouting at the Referee on the TV, but we choose not to listen :)

So, in terms of our spiritual lives, the challenge lies in not just hearing God's word or the promptings of the Spirit, but to actually pay attention to what is being said - that is true listening.

Luke 8:18 -  “So pay attention to how you hear. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what they think they understand will be taken away from them.”

1 Samuel 3:10 - And the Lord came and called as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel replied, “Speak, your servant is listening.”

 Luke 10:39 -  Her sister, Mary, sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to what he taught.

Take some time out today to LISTEN to the voice of God.

Living in Grace
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The voice of God

Aesop, told the story of a donkey who found a lion's skin. He tried on the skin and then began to frighten many of the other animals. One day a fox came along, and the donkey tried to scare him, too. However the fox was not so stupid - after hearing the donkey's voice, the fox said, "If you want to terrify me, you'll have to disguise your bray."

 We will be confronted by the voice of many "donkey's" this year. Many of them will threaten us or even offer us tasty temptations, but they will not be the voice of Jesus. Listening to the voice of God is tough when there are many imposters, but we need to tune into the Master's voice.

"The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” - John 10:3-5

May God speak clearly to you this week.

Living in Grace

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