Ears to Hear

[September 29, 2010]   --"When a great crowd gathered and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable: ‘A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell on the path and was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. Some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered for lack of moisture. Some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. Some fell into good soil, and when it grew, it produced a hundredfold.’ As he said this, he called out, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’ "-Luke 8: 4-8

So much of life is spent pondering irrelevancies. We sit around and consider this thing and dicker about that thing, and absorb ourselves with the trappings of minutia that, in the end, mean very little. But in this passage, Jesus is calling us to really look at what matters in our lives. And to this we must ask ourselves the question, how has my life received God's Word? Of the options Jesus lists above, and then explains a few verses later, which are we? Are we the good soil or are we one of the other three? This is the type of question that is not an irrelevancy. This is the type of question which shapes our entire lives. How we integrate and respond to God's Word will shape every single aspect of our lives.

Don't believe me? Consider the truthfulness of this statement: there is no area of our lives to which Jesus Christ does not speak. Do you believe that? I hope so, because that is what makes for the good soil. To hear Jesus' words we must hear them in all phases of our lives. We must remember that we are Christians even as we do business, root on our favorite team, raise our children, eat lunch with a friend, pay our bills, invest our money. On and on it goes; there is no aspect of our lives to which the Word of God does not speak. Not one. And so, are you the good soil? Do you let God's Word take root in your whole life, or do you relegate God to the peripheries? The Word of God is right here, within our grasp. It tells us all we need to know about who God is and who we are in relation to Him and our fellow human beings. It is up to us to help it take root.

Prayer: Holy God, help me to receive your Word with my whole life. Help me to integrate it into my thinking and my living, that everything I do might serve you. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
 

[Text from file received from Phil Blackburn, First Presbyterian Church]