Beware: Listen Or Else!
Beware: Listen Or Else!
Jesus warned His audience about many things… False teachers; the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees; our lifestyle; our motives; treatment of children. Jesus often said Watch out! Beware! Take heed to yourselves! Be on your guard! Be careful! And here is another fair warning from Jesus that was too important for Him to pass up: The importance of active listening.
“Be careful! Pay close attention to what you hear! Be diligent to understand the meaning behind everything you listen to. For the closer you listen, the more understanding you will be given. The measure of thought and study you give to the truth you hear will be the measure of virtue and knowledge that come back to you. And according to the depth of your longing to understand, much more will be added to you. For, those who listen with open hearts will receive more revelation. Those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them. Those who don’t listen with open hearts will lose what little they think they have!” (Mark 4:23-25; This is a weaving of several official translations of the Gospel, including The Amplified Bible, The Passion Translation, The New Revised Standard Version, The Message, and the New Living Translation).
Jesus has given His fair warning: Listen or else! Danger! If you don’t want to bother thinking about the truth that you hear, that opportunity may not last forever, and you might just lose what little understanding you do have. If you want to listen casually, with only half an ear, you just might miss the point! If you hear the truth, but have become so distracted it goes in one ear and out the other, the truth you do have might get muddled in your thinking. If a mental habit of inattentive listening makes it difficult to take the truth in, your prior understanding may experience a brain freeze. If you don’t pay attention to the spoken or written truth, that piece of truth will be snatched away by Satan and not given a chance to take root. If that happens you’ll have even less to think about. With a truth just lying there on the surface of your mind, you are vulnerable to the evil one flying in and taking it away. The seeds of the kingdom that are left on the surface of the soil will be washed away, snatched away, and will never reach fruition. Let the Word of truth sink into the fertile soil of your mind and heart, and watch the seeds grow roots and bear fruit in your life. Beware of the fruitless seeds, which result in a wasteland of a mind. Take the truth in. Listen or else.