Listen Carefully to Jesus
We’ve all heard the phrase, “Seeing is believing,” but Christians live in the age of the ear, not the eye. Rather, hearing is believing, as Paul wrote to the Romans 10:17, So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ. It follows that the Spirit and the Word not only create faith, but sustain it to the end. For this reason, we must listen carefully to Jesus.
It’s here that we need to clarify something else. What is the Word of Christ that Paul goes on about? Isn’t it those specific words that some Bible publishers emblazon on the pages of the Gospels in bright red? Aren’t we to listen a bit more carefully to Jesus’ words in the Scripture? After all, don’t his words come with a bit more authority than Paul’s? Or John’s? Or whoever?
We must answer ‘No!’ All of the Bible is the Word of Christ! Liberal “theologians” from untold ages past have undermined the authority of God’s Word by suggesting that only Jesus’ words are Jesus’ Word. But because God is the ultimate author of Scripture, all of it is Jesus’ Word. We need to listen carefully to Jesus in Genesis and in Judges. We need to hear him in Haggai and in Hebrews. Indeed, we need to lean in whenever the Word is preached and while we sit under the lamp light with an open Bible. And that’s because listening to Jesus in His Word is the food that feeds our faith.
As we lean in as a church to hear what Christ says to us, may our prayer be a corporate one, as Paul wrote in Colossians 3:16:
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
A church headed for glory together listens carefully to Jesus. How are you doing, dear friend, at listening? Ask God for the grace to listen a little more carefully to his voice today.
A Happier Prayer Life
“I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love,
and I will meditate on your statutes.” —Psalm 119:48
What’s the key to a happier prayer life? Is it doubling down on discipline? A focus on the discipline of prayer is needful. But if we hope to have a happier prayer life, our gaze needs to fall on the One to whom we pray. This is why the key to a happier prayer life isn’t merely a calendar overhaul, but a deeper knowledge of God.
This is why Bible intake, rather than being a separate feature of the Christian life, is integrally tied to prayer. If prayer is a fire, the Bible, which reveals God, His Gospel, and His promises, is the fuel. Our prayer life will never rise higher than our contemplation of God’s Word. These two spiritual disciplines, which are often handled separately, are vitally connected.
In Psalm 119, the Psalmist is enamored with the God of the Word and so he goes on about his delight in the law, his commitment to it, and the blessing that it brings when he obeys it. In verse 48, the Psalmist vows to “lift up my hands towards your commandments, which I love…” Though there is no definitive posture of prayer in either the Old Testament or New, the lifting up of the hands in connection with prayer is profoundly emphasized in Scripture (1 Tim. 2:8). It may well be the case, that the Psalmist is modeling for us that our Word life is to be supplemented by prayer, and that our prayer life is to be supplemented by the Word!
How can we be happier in prayer? The key is to be happier in God! So it follows that the Word and prayer are the closest of friends. Or to touch on the analogy earlier mentioned, the Word lights the bonfire of prayer. And likewise, as we prayerfully pursue the God of the Word, the happy fires of prayer are stoked. No more wet wood. No more smoldering prayer. Dear friends, as we pursue a happier prayer life, remember that the key is knowing God. And we know Him as the Spirit reveals Him in His Word.
The Hands & the Heart
“For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
—Psalm 51:6-7
We’re all tempted to serve Jesus without savoring him. We neglect what Jesus calls in Luke 10:42, the “good portion.” But busy hands without a heart for Jesus is a recipe for sin and misery.
In Psalm 51, a freshly convicted David declares the vital connection between the hands and the heart. No amount of burnt offerings laid on the altar could please God. Superficial worship holds out hands to God, but holds back the heart. The problem was David’s sin-sick heart before the Lord, not a shortage of bulls and goats. One thing we can learn from David’s scandalous ordeal is that the matter of the heart is always the heart of the matter. Worship that pleases God flows from a humble heart.
Friend, are you neglecting the better portion? Have you made peace with certain sin-patterns in your life? Have you resisted church fellowship, one of God’s means of speaking into your life? Do you have busy hands, but a troubled heart? Jesus invites you to draw near to Him without delay. The image of Him on the cross, arms wide open, is an apt image for reluctant worshippers.