Title: Ears To Hear? / Topic: Listening For Today

Today’s Reading: Zechariah 10, 11, 12; Psalm 126; Luke 14

Scripture: Luke 14:35 ..."He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

Observation: Jesus is speaking to the crowds with instruction peppered with parables. The topic is the cost of following Jesus. He says that to follow him will cost a person everything, even his family! And Jesus uses parables to encourage us to count the cost in advance. He likens following him to building a tower and to going to war, both intensive undertakings. He sums up in verse 33: "In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple." Then, using salt as a picture of the true disciple he says this: "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out." I don't know of any way for salt to lose it saltiness except to be polluted or thinned by having other stuff mixed in. Lastly he gives the words which are the subject of today's post: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

Application: As a person who has read through the Bible scores of times, I often come across familiar passages and say to myself, "yeah, yeah, I know what that means..." and the like. I can actually tune out because I have heard it all before. And I found myself doing this today, as I read Luke 14. "Yeah, yeah, hate your family, build a tower, go to war, be salt, zzzz..." Then I got a jolt: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." I realized that I don't have ears to hear. I had tuned it out. So I want to say,

Prayer: Lord, give me ears to hear -- ears that are wide open to always hear whatever you are saying to me today -- ears that never assume that I know what a passage means simply because I have read it before. It is so good to know you always have something fresh for me each day. Give us this day our daily bread.

This I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.