Monday, May 9, 2022

Orange Moon Monday, May 9, 2022 "Listeners and Hearers"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…


"Listeners and Hearers"

   

    Communicators always hope that the words they deliver will be received by their listeners or readers.  This particularly applies to the Communicator.

     "My son, if thou wilt receive My words, and hide My commandments with thee; so that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding, yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures, then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God" (Proverbs 2:1-5).

   God ever speaks, by the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit, His creation, His church, and His personal involvement in our lives.  Humanity, conversely, does not ever listen.  "All we like sheep have gone astray" (Isaiah 53:6).  Even in those who have received the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, responsiveness to God remains a great challenge.  Certainly, our spirits, united to the Spirit of Christ, look above for ever increasing measures of light.  Our flesh, however, "lusteth against the spirit" and thus bears no interest in receiving or responding to our Lord's communication (Galatians 5:17).  The conflict will remain during our earthly lifetime, necessitating that we affirm our spirit's delight in responding to God, while acknowledging our fleshly tendency to distraction and diversion.

    "I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind" (Romans 7:22-23).

   A part of us, the very heart of us in Christ, longs to listen, to hear, to read, to respond, and to assimilate the Light of God.  This we must know about ourselves by affirming that the greatest Responder of all dwells within us as the very Life of our lives.  "God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba Father" (Galatians 4:6).  Our noisy and easily perceived flesh may indicate otherwise.  However, nothing can change the delight of our "inward man" for hearing and heeding our Heavenly Father's communication.  Through Christ, God implants a receiver, as it were, in every believer.  Indeed, even before the advent of the permanently indwelling Holy Spirit given after Christ's redeeming work, God worked to instill a holy interest in those who trusted Him:

    "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart" (Jeremiah 15:16).

    How much more is this true of New Testament believers in whom the Spirit of the Lord Jesus eternally abides as our very life?  How much more true about you and me?  Yes, the Communicator loves listeners and hearers.  That is us as believers in Christ, a truth of grace we must believe about ourselves, regardless of how well we may have known or responded heretofore.  Such awareness will lead to far greater realization, response, and most importantly, to our pleasing the heart of the Communicator who delights in listeners and hearers.

"Call unto Me, and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not."
(Jeremiah 33:3)
Weekly Memory Verse
   "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart."
 (Jeremiah 15:16).











































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