FEB. 6: SELF-INFLICTED DEAFNESS

Deafness is a terrible handicap, especially if it is self-inflicted deafness. Has your spouse or parent ever said to you, “Are you listening to me?” or “I know I told you a thousand times” ? The implications are that you have the ability to hear but are intentionally refusing to listen.
I have known of people who simply turned off their hearing aids when they didn’t want to hear or listen. It’s not a new problem. Jesus dealt with it. Often He completed a teaching by saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” (Mark 4:9 NIV) Or, in other words, “use your ears; you need to be responding positively to what I am saying.”
There are two ways of listening to someone: (1) at a sensory level, simply registering the sounds coming from another person or (2) at an emotional level by receiving the words in the context they are given and responding in the proper emotional and intellectual way. Some thought they could pretend not to understand and thereby escape accountability. Jesus could see their motives and games and confront them with “You had better listen closely to this.”
What have you heard from God? Or hearing now? What message was spoken to you from the Bible? I know you heard it with your ears, did you heart it with your heart? “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening” is a proper response. (1 Samuel 3:10 NIV) God is Alive and He is not silent!

“Break into our hard-closed hearing, O God, we need desperately
to hear a fresh word from You and to respond . Amen”