The Power of Listening

This weekend at our church we had a special guest missionary for our 2nd Missions Emphasis Sunday of the year.  While speaking on Acts 8 and the story of Philip and the Ethiopian, he pointed out that one of the things that we need to do as we engage our world is to listen and ask questions.  The more I thought about this the more I thought about how profound it truly is.  As the weekend ended with a concert in Las Vegas that did not go as expected and many people were injured and lost their life, what struck me when I turned on the news was how nobody seemed to be listening.  Everyone was pontificating and sharing their opinions.  They interviewed the shooters brother and he stated his opinion of his brother.  The newscasters and politicians use the situation to get the best angle on the story and the best way to spin the story to make it fit within the agenda of whatever political party happened to be speaking.  In all of this, no one was listening.

We have a crisis in our world that we need to listen to.  It is called Sin. It is something that we should have listened to the Scriptures about.  And its answer is not to reduce the number of guns used to commit sin any more than it would be to remove the eyes that commit lust.  It is not to consider the factors that led someone to commit sin.  THE ANSWER is to consider the remedy to sin provided by the Lord Jesus Christ and recognize Him as Savior and Lord.  Nothing else will ultimately fix anyone. 

So perhaps we need to encourage people to read the Scriptures so that we can ask, "Do you understand what you are reading?"  Or just ask them, "Do you understand what you are seeing" as we address cultural issues.  And this applies to more than just the devastating events in Las Vegas.  We need to be willing to listen to the Word of God and allow Him to change us from the inside out.  We need to be much better listeners.