Your Daily Slice

Iyar 16

WHAT are you Hearing?

“If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” And He said to them, “Take heed WHAT you hear. With the same measure you use, it shall be measured to you, and more shall be added to you who hear. For whoever possesses, to him more shall be given; but whoever does not possess, even what he possesses shall be taken away from him.” (Mark 4:23-25 ISR, emphasis mine)

How often are we hearing, yet not actually listening?  How much do we “tune out” during the course of the day, such as TV commercials, conversations of other people in the grocery store, the dog barking down the street, etc?  Yet it is surprising how much we can recall when we need to, considering our ability to selectively “hear”.

Messiah Yeshua gave us warnings about what we are to hear:  according to our opening verse, we are to take heed, be careful, use caution and watch, as for danger.  Both in the Hebrew and Greek, the words translated “hear” (sh’ma, Strong’s #H8085; akouō, Strong’s #G191) include the sense of comprehension, understanding, obedience and action, all within the sense of hearing.  So, not only are we to “hear and listen”; we are also to obey, following through with the corresponding action.  It is therefore no wonder that we need to watch out for what we are listening to.

How are we hearing, if not with just our ears?  What are we depositing into our spirit man, words of life, or words of death? We hear with our ears, but we understand and receive the Word with our hearts, and our spirit.  The attitude of our heart, according to the parable of the sower (Luke 8:11-15), has everything to do with how we receive and hear the Word of our Elohim, and once we receive the Word, it becomes our responsibility to tend to it.

“Hold the pattern of sound words which you have HEARD from me, in belief and love which are in Messiah יהושע. Watch over the good deposit that was entrusted to you, by the Set-apart Spirit dwelling in us.” (2Tim 1:13-14 ISR, emphasis mine)

“Because of this we have to pay more attention to what we have HEARD, lest we drift away.” (Heb 2:1 ISR, emphasis mine)

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