Be Careful How You Listen
Mark 4:24 Think carefully about what you are hearing. God will know how much to give you by how much you understand now. But he will give you more than you deserve.
We’re surrounded by incessant noise. Your phone pings, the TV hums away in the background, notifications blink for your attention. One sound after another competing to be heard. Yet, strangely, the more we listen to everything … the less we truly hear anything.
In 2007, a casually dressed musician set up in a busy Washington subway station and played a Bach concerto on his priceless Stradivarius violin. Thousands rushed past – late for work, lost in their phones – not realising that the performer was one of the world’s greatest violinists, Joshua Bell. Only a handful stopped to listen.
The beauty was there … they just didn’t notice. That’s exactly what Jesus was getting at when He said this:
Mark 4:24 Think carefully about what you are hearing. God will know how much to give you by how much you understand now. But he will give you more than you deserve.
Jesus had just told the parable of the sower – how the same seed produces nothing in one heart and abundance in another, depending on how it’s received. The difference wasn’t the message … it was the hearing.
In a world of distractions, God still speaks – through His Word, His Spirit, and even the quiet nudges of conscience. And the easiest thing for us to do is to ignore Him, or at least downplay the life-saving, life-giving importance of what He’s saying.
So, before you rush to the next thing, pause. Lean in. Listen carefully.
Because the measure of attention you give to God is the measure of life He’ll pour back into you … more than you could ever deserve.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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