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.