When's the last time we listened to Jesus -- really listened? Really paid attention to what He was saying and how that impacted what we know to be true about life.
I always find it interesting that so many people - those who followed Him and seemed to approved of what He was saying, as well as so many opponents, couldn't help but have a startled impression of Jesus once they listened to Him.
In one instance Jesus' enemies sent temple guards to arrest Jesus. Off they went but things didn't turn out as expected.
The temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?” “No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied. John 7:45-46
Jesus' words caught the attention and the heart of those who paid attention and listened. Even in his hometown where he was disparaged as the son of a simple carpenter:
All were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips; and they were saying, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” Luke 4:22
I could cite lots of other examples but I think we get the point. The application for myself, and maybe for some others of us today, is to ask if we are really listening to Jesus or if His stories and words have become so familiar to us in some way that they slide by without us paying much attention to them. Are we catching the significance and the beauty and the authority with which Jesus speaks as the people around Him did over and over again? What impact on our thoughts and behaviours do Jesus words actually have today? How are our hearts lifted up by the truth He speaks and the love with which He shares?
When the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue; and the many listeners were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things, and what is this wisdom given to Him, and such miracles as these performed by His hands? Mark 6:2
Lord, we pray again to have ears to hear and eyes to see what You are communicating to us today. You have amazing words of life and hope that are meant to lift us up and take us forward better than we’ve ever experienced life before. You are God. You have words of life. What more could we desire or need in these days of illness, death and chaos around our world?
Your way and Your words are decidedly different from what gets played out in political circles or beamed to us through the media. Initially what You say can feel a bit jarring because it is so counter cultural, and yet when we spend a moment and let what You say sink into our thoughts and our heart and consider it, the wisdom and the authority of it all bursts on us with freshness and energy that is quite amazing.
Lord, help us today to really consider Your words again. Keep us from just intellectualizing or even just moralizing and evaluating our broken culture with Your words. We need our hearts and minds awakened and refreshed once again with the beauty and the authority, the rightness of what You are saying that no one else gets right.
With Simon Peter we say:
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God. John 6:68-69
We need Your help, Holy Spirit to hear well, to understand what we are hearing, and to have courage to receive the truth of Jesus’ words when they run so counter to what we’ve known up until now – and that includes those of us who think we’ve been hearing and responding to Your words for years.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
No matter how many times we’ve heard fresh things from You, God, we know we are in need of that again today. Help us to hear Your thoughts. Draw us up out of our own familiar way of seeing things and refresh and inspire us with Your words of life.
As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. Psalm 42:1
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