Who do you listen to when there’s so many choices?
Your decision has eternal significance.
by Barrett Vanlandingham (March 08, 2007)

Recently, at Detour Zone (after school program for 6th-12th graders), I noticed how captivated a roomful of teenagers had become by just listening to each other’s ring tones on their cell phones. Some of the ring tones they have downloaded through the internet and from each other’s cell phones are “pretty interesting.” Everything from the sound of laughing babies, to the screech of a rock-n-roll guitar, to the clucks of chickens can be used as a ring tone. The more bizarre the sound, the more laughs you get from your friends when your cell phone rings. All of this started me to thinking about spiritual applications, since the world is full of sounds competing for our ears’ attention.
Matthew 13:1-9 tells the story of a farmer who was sowing seed. Some of it fell on hard ground where birds ate it up, some on rocky ground where the plants were scorched because of shallow roots, some on thorny soil which caused the plants to be choked out, and some on good soil which resulted in a very successful crop. Then Jesus said, “He who has ears, let him hear.” In this story, it’s easy to tell which soil (or life) was turned out the best… the one that accepted the message.
Jesus has given the same New Testament message to us for nearly two-thousand years. The question today is whether we are listening to the voice of truth, or to the messages being sent by the world. It can be confusing as Christians living in the world, yet being separate from it. It’s not an impossible task at all if we keep our ears in tune with the Gospel message of Jesus and the salvation He brings. It’s a irresistible message that we must help Jesus deliver to all.
Luke 10:38-41 tells the story of Jesus and his disciples visiting the home of Mary and her sister Martha. Preparations had to be made for the guests, but Mary chose to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to what he had to say. This didn’t go over very well with Martha who was busy getting things ready… and when Martha asked Jesus to tell her sister to start helping out, Jesus wouldn’t do it because he said Mary had made a better choice. What this means to me and you is that we need to constantly re-evaluate what’s important in life. Sometimes, we get so bogged down in the daily stresses of life and meeting deadlines, we forget about the importance of listening to what Jesus is trying to tell us in his word.
In Luke 10:16, Jesus had just chosen 72 people to go ahead of him to every town and place he was about to go. He told them, “He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” It’s so important for us to realize the consequences of not accepting and applying God’s word. True hearing, just like true believing, involves obedience, not just the accumulation of knowledge. God knows the difference.
1 John 4:1-6 echoes this thought, and states further that whoever knows God listens to God’s message, while those who are from the world do not. This becomes extremely important in light of what 1 Peter 3:12 has to say about who God listens to… “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
May God bless us all as we strive to hear Godly messages in a noisy world.