Eyes To See And Ears To Hear

For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.' - Matthew 13:15 NIV

The theme of rebellion is spelled out numerous times in the Old Testament. God repeatedly gave the prophets the words 'eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear'. I talked yesterday about how the current state of our nation very much reminds of the people of Israel back then. The thing is (and thanks to Pastor Philip for helping me find the words!), we all have God's truth built within us. We all know we're created for something more than what it seems the world might want us to believe. We just aren't always very good about opening our eyes and our ears so that we can see and hear God at work in our lives. This is what I was talking about yesterday when I wrote about God calling to us more and more loudly the farther away we as a nation push Him.

Just when it seems that nobody can make a movie with anything resembling a Godly message or even just a solid set of values instilled in it, we seem to get a rash of them. Just when it seems like the church is dying a slow and painful death, there is an evolution in the church and people become engaged again. The same can be said for every medium of communication out there. Don't believe me? Go take a look at how many Facebook pages there are that are just plain wrong and then compare that with how many there are devoted to the Bible and to God and to sharing Jesus with others.

The problem is, how do we know if it's really God talking to us or someone trying to trick us? After all, it's extremely easy to hear things that sound true and Godly and accept them as God's truth. The thing is, many times there is enough truth in a lie to make it plausible and that makes the lie even more dangerous. We're willing to take information from a source we trust and believe it to be 100% true, even if it's only 98% true. But if 2% of a lie becomes truth to us, what happens the next time we hear another 98% truth? We get a little farther off the mark each time until, looking back, it's hard to ever find the real truth again at all!

Fortunately, there is a sure-fire way to avoid falling into Satan's trap. The great thing about God is He is very consistent. In other words, you will never hear God tell you to do something that He's previously told you was wrong. It simply isn't possible for there to be any gray area with God. If something you hear or read seems to be on the mark, what you have to ask yourself is does it meet up with God's standard which is the Bible? Does this new information or direction meet up with God's will for you as given to each of us by Jesus? If you have eyes to see what God has to show you, then you will have ears to hear when someone tries to trick you into believing the lie by giving you just enough of the truth to make it sound good. God gave you everything you need to succeed in life when He created you in your mother's womb. He had a plan for you before you were even a flicker of a thought in your parents' eyes. Put your eyes on God and put your ears on His word and His Son and live a life abundant in His love and mercy!