Listen…to Love!
Listen, Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!
You must love the LORD your God with your whole mind, your whole being, and all your strength. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
Jesus said to him, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
This is the first and greatest commandment.
The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40)
The familiar and profound biblical picture of listening is wonderfully illustrated to us in both Old and New Testaments in the work and role of a shepherd with his sheep. The sheep, who in time, have come to know their shepherd, know his voice, and will follow as the shepherd does not drive the sheep but leads and guides them.
The doorkeeper opens the door for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
When he has brought all his own sheep out, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they recognize his voice. (John 10:3-4)
Jesus’ teaching is the Divine picture of His desired love relationship with you and I. Knowing the shepherd and, in particularly His voice, is the key to the experience of care, provision, protection…in short, fully encompassed in love.
If you have trouble hearing God speak, you are in trouble at the very heart
of your Christian experience. (Henry Blackaby)
The Shema of Deuteronomy 6 and Jesus’ response to the question of which is the greatest commandment (Matthew 22:37) come together into one message…and like a sheep, the call and command is to listen to the LORD God as the sole God of the Universe and choose Him as your ultimate, constant obedient response to be one of love—with your total being. The love expression to the LORD will then set the pace of love to others as you have now come to fully love yourself. (Matthew 22:39)
Both the ahab love in Deut. 6:5 and the agape love of Matt. 22:37, underscore the listening outcome to love is a love of deep affection and friendship towards the LORD. Thus, the spiritual prompt to truly listen and believingly hear God brings forth the profound fruit, yes, reward of closeness and familiarity of love that follows our Good Shepherd.
Unbelief can render a person stone deaf to God’s voice.
(Henry Blackaby)
Therefore, the key to listening in order to love Him is to fully know and readily recognize our Father’s voice. First, saying “yes” to be a part of Jesus’ flock begins the relationship and path towards familiarity to His heart and voice. Second, affording ourselves continual exposure to Christ Jesus as the Good Shepherd by hearing Him through the Scripture and conversation with Him in prayer will deepen the Shepherd-sheep love relationship. Then the required expressions to adjust life, trust Him, and obey Him will become common, and yet new in the adventure called eternal life.
The willingness to obey every word from God is critical to hearing God speak.
Henry Blackaby
After a Google search, I have come to understand that the phrase, “selective hearing” is not just the husband tuning out the wife or the student not engaging the teacher’s lecture, but that selective hearing is a cognitive ability that exists. It works to block background noise so one will not experience audible sensory overload.
Do you and I have spiritual “selective hearing” when it comes to listening to love God with our total being? Have we allowed the accumulation of so much “background noise” through social media, discipleship studies, church activities, the work/school grind and so forth to not only “drown out” the Good Shepherd’s voice but as a sheep of His pasture we are prone to wander? The enticing messages of the world, religious activity, and the daily “white noise” of work and the world has numbed us, made us sleepy, or completely put us on a different frequency that we do not clearly recognize and respond to the Shepherd’s “Follow Me.” Our listening misses, confuses, or discards, the Shepherd’s voice.
If so, join me in receiving and returning to the reciprocal love of the Good Shepherd that we have been called to hear and follow. Why? Well since we have a Good Shepherd and LORD He does something amazing when selective hearing kicks in…
“Which one of you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go look for the one that is lost until he finds it?
Then when he has found it, he places it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
Returning home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, telling them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost.’
I tell you, in the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need to repent. (Luke 15:4-7)
Our Father, create in our hearts a burning to hear You to love You. That our obedience will allow that affectionate love to flow to the love of others to the point that we would lay down our lives for them. (John 15:13) May the Shema blessing to family as well as fulfillment of the Greatest Commandment be our daily experience with You, our Good Shepherd, that we are overwhelmed and heartily agree with David when he wrote, “I lack nothing.” (Psalm 23:1) In Jesus’ name, amen.
