YOU MIGHT DISAGREE

Preparing a couple for marriage is an exercise in continual surprises. One of the first surprises a couple experiences is: The 3 Reasons A Marriage Fails. Infidelity is not a surprising cause of marriage breakdown. The fact that finances are notone of the three most common reasons is surprising. And the fact that a lack of pre-marriage preparation is one of the top three causes is also surprising. But it’s the other cause of marriage failure that is not only surprising, it is full of surprises. 

“Do two walk together, unless they have agreed to meet?”
Amos 3:3

HOW A PERSON DISAGREES SAYS A LOT ABOUT THEM

The biggest challenge any couple (and any two people, for that matter) will have is how to communicate effectivelywith each other. While this often surprises a couple I prepare for marriage, it’s what they learn about disagreeing that surprises them even more! We live in a world often framed by shallow arguments. Here are some examples of shallow ‘arguments’ : 

• “Because I said so!“
• “I just reckon.“
• “I read it on the internet.”
• “I heard it on TV.“
• “Because such and such professor recently published it in a book.“
• “God told me.“
• “I believe it with all my heart.“

None of these ‘arguments’ are reasonable. Contrast these shallow ‘arguments’ (none of them are actually ‘arguments’ because they are only opinions or assertions) with what a strong argument should look like:

• “I know this is the case because I have seen it with my own eyes and here’s the photo I took of it.”
• “In Dr. Kenneth Gentry’s book, ‘Before Jerusalem Fell’ he has made the case that the Book of Revelation had to have been written before A.D. 70!“
• “Because in 2007, Geelong won the A.F.L. Premiership.“
• “You couldn’t have been working late, because I called into your work when you said you were there and it was closed and your car wasn’t in the carpark.” 

I hope you can see the difference between someone’s opinion and someone’s reasons from this brief comparison. But here’s where it gets surprising when it comes to communicating with someone effectively. Others opinions matter! The problem we have with having opinions though is that we can hold them despite some good reasons not to. An even greater problem is that when we meet someone who has an opinion which differs from ours, we tend to clash with them. It can be a very confronting thing when our opinions are challenged by someone who might have good reasons for believing we are wrong. This is when this kind of clash can result in tension and conflict. That why we can tell a lot about a person by how they disagree with someone.

Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.
Second Corinthians 13:11

WHAT WE LEARN ABOUT SOMEONE BY HOW THEY DISAGREE

When someone is confronted with another person who disagrees with their opinion, here’s how you can tell if their opinion is reasonable or not. 

• Do they have reasons for their opinion, or just a belief that they are right?
• Are they prepared to face challenges to their opinion, or do they refuse to discuss the matter?
• When challenged by someone with a different opinion to them, do they respond by attacking the person instead?

I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers,
First Corinthians 6:5

WHEN DISAGREEMENT IS WORTH MORE THAN GOLD

Perhaps the biggest surprise that a couple encounters when we discuss developing intimacy, is just how necessary disagreements are! Disagreements are most often seen as a sign that the relationship is in trouble, when in fact, it is a sure sign that the relationship is actually deeper, stronger, and closer. This is because these potential clashes often involve matters of the heart. And I say, ‘potential’ clashes because they needn’t be an occasion for a heated quarrel. What we discover in pre-marriage counselling is how to recognise these potential clashes as gold for their relationship. Rather than setting out to crush the other’s opinion, it is wiser to listen to it and to seek to understandthis person by discovering why they hold this opinion. In marriage preparation, this surprising discovery leads to a couple learning to: seek to understand before being understood. It is surprising to learn that when someone feels understood, even if the other person still disagrees with their opinion, they simultaneously feel closer to that person. This is why disagreement is gold for developing a more intimate relationship with someone. After seeking to understand someone with whom we might disagree, it then creates a more conducive environment for them to begin to understand our opinion. In a heated quarrel this kind of mutual understanding rarely takes place and the result is distance and animosity. This distance and animosity can be repaired with a genuine exchange of apologies, and new commitment to understand each others heart.

¶ But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
Galatians 2:11-14

THREE WAYS TO DISAGREE, TWO ARE UNHELPFUL

I have briefly discussed one of the most helpful ways to disagrees with someone There are two others, which are far more popular. The first way is avoidance. Simply ignore the disagreement. For small issues, this is the most civilised way to disagree. The second is attack the other person. This generally happens when the attacker has a shallow or weak case to support their opinion. It’s also proven to be a most effective means for settling a disagreement – but it is wrong! It takes more effort for a parent to patiently explain to their disagreeable child why they need a regular and consistent early bed-time. It’s far easier just to use force. For those interested in twentieth century Spanish history, the example of General Franco is an abhorrent illustration of this. Taking the time to demonstrate your reasonableness, without resorting to threats of violence of intimidation, is hard work. It’s one of the reasons why I really appreciate what Samuel Green does in debating with Muslim leaders and scholars about why Islam is false and Christianity it true. Samuel does this without resorting to ridicule or threats of intimidation. 

As a church, if we are to grow, we will have disagreements along the way. It is my hope that we can learn to understand before being understood, and that we can also learn which disagreements are worth dialoguing about. 

Pastor Andrew

THE KING OF PASSIONATE LOVERS

THE KING OF PASSIONATE LOVERS

No one knows more about romance, intimacy and love. No one has ever loved as passionately like the one deservedly called the King of lovers. His methods are smooth, deliberate, and intentional. His wooing is calculated and done without ever rushing, pushing, or force. As with the best of lovers, the heart of the Lover-King belongs only to the one – the betrothed. For her part, it’s all a mystery why someone so rich, so charming, so good, would want her. This is all the more mysterious considering what her predicament was: kidnapped, held as a captive, guarded by vicious thugs. On hearing of her plight, the Lover-King risked life and limb to stage a daring rescue. There was much blood shed in the rescue, more than the damsel would ever know. When delivered out of harm’s way, the King of Lovers showed her great kindness. Initially the gifts were nice new clothes, then accompanying jewellery, then flowers, meals, strolls together. Her abused and weary heart began to trust again to increasing degrees of vulnerability when her Lover-King was there. As she opened her heart to this King of lovers the more she was seen as deeply beautiful. 

¶ My beloved is mine, and I am his;
Song of Songs 2:16

 

THE ULTIMATE DISCOVERY

The greatest lover who has ever graced this planet was a man who never married and was celibate for life. Yet, this man was the most fulfilled person of all time and enjoyed the greatest riches of human flourishing. Women loved to be in His presence, and never felt safer than when they were. Men respected Him and wanted to be like Him. Children followed Him and shared laughs with Him when they did. He was a man who knew He was loved and knew better than anybody how to really love. 

Yet the world had never seen such love. Neither did it know how to respond. Such love was foreign to all who met Him. Compared to what they had been calling ‘love’ His love was sweet, pure, selfless, gentle, and generous. All this made the following fact all the more remarkable: He never once said, ‘I love you.’ He never needed to. People who encountered it knew it! 

His love was not unbridled passion – not every lust or whim or desire would be met with a ‘yes’, for, as those who watched Him closely knew, His love was was truer than these imposters. Love’s “yes” must be protected by a battalion  of “no’s”! Only by saying “no” to the masquerading imposters of lust, whim, and desire, can love’s ‘yes’ be protected.

¶ The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed Him.
Luke 16:14

The ultimate discovery for many was that what they thought was love was merely instant gratification masquerading as love which then came at a price they later found out to be unimaginably high. 

A REVOLUTION

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:34-35

Love can only be when there is a deep respect for its sacredness. Jesus, the King of passionate lovers, has shown us that there is more to life that is sacred than perhaps we realise. We human beings are endowed with the unique ability to express the image of God to the world in a way that animals cannot, nature cannot, and those who do not know Him cannot. Thus, the King of lovers taught that love only has meaning when it is treated as being sacred (something dedicated to God for His glory). This is why the highest expression of physical love, sexual intimacy, demands the highest commitment first – a covenant of marriage made before the Holy God (Hebrews 13:4).

The rescued girl in the opening paragraph is an apt metaphor for all those who have been rescued from the devilish kidnapping forces of the Enemy who has bewitched many into thinking the heinous lie that love is grounded in fulfilling their basest desires. Jesus Christ, the Lover-King literally risked life and limb to rescue us. Once rescued, He has showered us with lavish acts of kindness and generous bounty. In return He wants nothing but deserve everything. And for those whose hearts have been revolutionised by His wondrous love, loving Him in return is the most beautiful privilege we could ever receive.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?  ¶ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Romans 8:35, 37

 He still woos hearts. He still rescues the kidnapped. He still lavishes His generosity upon the underserving. Oh what love! “So amazing – so divine! Demands my soul – demands my all!”

Your pastor,

Andrew Corbett

PRESENT

What would it have been like to have been with Christ? 

Was there ever a man in more demand than Jesus of Nazareth? Thousands upon thousands of people waited eagerly day after day to see, hear, and meet Jesus the long-awaited Christ. Royalty wanted to meet with Him. Religious leaders wanted to meet with Him. The sick and infirmed queued to touch Him. All the while Jesus was on a mission of paramount importance and not only had all these enormous physical demands laid upon His shoulders, He also had unimaginably evil forces attempting to oppress, distract and thwart Him. Yet, with all this happening, the Gospels are punctuated with individual encounters with the Christ.

He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).
¶ The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”
John 1:41-43

A night with Jesus by Nicodemus

I’m trying to learn from Christ. This involves paying prayerful attention to what He taught, but it also involves how He taught. For me this encompasses how He interacted with people. His interaction with Nicodemus is fascinating. 

The first thing I notice in John’s third chapter is that Jesus risked His reputation by befriending someone from a group of people He had publicly condemned for hypocrisy. Jesus didn’t just spend time with those who were already His friends.

And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that He was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to His disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And when Jesus heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Mark 2:16-17

Jesus was surprisingly accessible to individuals. Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. Jesus made Himself available. Perhaps He had developed a habit of being in a particular place at night. Nicodemus knew where to find Him. When Nicodemus met with Jesus He attempted to give Christ His due, and while many preachers would welcome the stroking of their egos, Jesus immediately overlooked this and looked directly into Nicodemus’s heart, and answered the Pharisee’s unasked question. This exchange exposed Nicodemus’s religion as mere cold formalism – and not the heart-connected, soul-satisfying, intellectually enriching, entrance into GOD’s intimately love-drenched presence. Christ was not intimidated by speaking to ‘The Teacher of Israel’ and was prepared to give the first properly done rebuke in human history.

Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.
John 3:10-11

The rebuke that Christ had offered in public to the Pharisees, He now gave personally in private. Unlike our rebukes, Christ’s must have been tender and soothing. Nicodemus welcomed what followed. What followed was Jesus giving the light that Nicodemus lacked.  

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
John 3:19-21

Jesus was a friend to Nicodemus.

In John chapter 4, Jesus befriends a Samaritan woman and heals her soul.

In John chapter 5, Jesus befriended an invalid and healed his lame legs.

In John chapter 6, Jesus has a conversation with Philip, then a small boy, and then Simon Peter, and then feeds them.

In John chapter 8, Jesus spoke with a woman dragged out into the dirt to be stoned and saved her life.

And so on.

In each of the nine days that John selects to paint a picture He depicts Christ as being present with individuals. Now that Christ has been resurrected and glorified, and dwells in eternity, how much more does He now have time to be with individuals? 

What did people feel who had been with Christ? 

It’s possible to be physically and geographically with someone but not present. What I am learning from Christ’s interactions with this sample of people whom He was present with, is that being present is a demonstration of God’s love. With each person that Christ engaged with, whether it was a religious Pharisee, a woman with a reputation, an elderly invalid, a young boy about to eat his lunch, an adulterous woman, a blind man, a grieving sister, a Roman Procurator, a thief on an adjacent cross, a beleaguered disciple, Christ was present.

We busy people are generally lousy at being present. We can be with someone and be a million miles away at the same time. While someone is chatting with us we are continually checking our phone screens. This is rude and a denial of our presence. Presence involves seeing and hearing. It involves connecting to some level with someone’s heart. This all takes practice. In the Gospels I see Jesus being present. What must people have felt when Jesus was present with them? We can do more than surmise the answer, we can experience it now.    

teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am (present) with you always, to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20

Pastor Andrew.

Time To Pant

IT’S TIME TO PANT

¶ As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
Psalm 42:1

It’s all too easy to become lax in our desire to know and love God. I’m not sure if this is just the blight of the middle-aged who have families to tend, bills to pay, careers to manage, health to maintain, and relationships to repair. I think this laxity also beguiles the young who have friends to please, crowds to hang with, exams to pass, relationships to form, social-media posts to update, pimples to hide, and clothes to buy. How then does the deepest drive in the human soul – the drive to be with, know, and love God – find its fulfilment? This is how.

After the Reformation began in the sixteenth century, the English Protestant Reformers were faced with the challenge of transmitting the truth of the Bible to a generation of ordinary people who were mostly illiterate. They formulated their own ‘Catechism’ (a series of questions and answers to be memorised). The result was The Westminster Shorter Catechism. The first question reads-

Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

Fulfilling our deepest desire – a desire greater than that of wanting human companionship – begins by learning to pant. King David had been going through a tumultuous time in his life when he realised that his circumstances had distracted him from pursuing God. I think life can do this for the believer today. We get busy. We get distracted. We get lax. We must remind ourselves that our chief purpose in life is not to find a job, get married, buy a house, start a family – but to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever! Panting for God as a parched deer pants for water begins in our heart where we still our souls and prayerfully ask God to come closer into His presence.

Being still and doing nothing are two very different things.
(Mr Han to Xiao Dre, in Karate Kid 2010)

“Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!”
Psalm 46:10

Our enemy wants us to be distracted and distant. God wants us to be still and close. In Psalm 42 King David tells us about his difficulties. He describes his despondency (“my tears have been my food day and night” Psalm 42:3) and the ridicule he endured (‘they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?”’ Psalm 42:3). And he then reveals to us the master strategy for fighting our way out of such mental and emotional oppression which often sugar-coats its distractions with happiness.

¶ Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation
Psalm 42:5

As David fought through the multitude of distractions in his life which kept him from seeking God first, he tells us that was him choosing to seek God like a thirsty deer sought for water. It involved praying, reminding himself of God’s faithfulness from His Word, singing in worship to God (Psalm 42:8) and praising God with thanksgiving (Psalm 42:11).

I have found myself being distracted. Pain in my deteriorating body, pressure of responsibilities, and the things common to us all, and I have reminded myself that my greatest desire and need is to know God, love God and enjoy Him forever. My panting prayer has been to ask God to speak to me and to grant me the ears to hear Him. It has included a cry to know Him more intimately and to make Him known more clearly. It has asked Him to soften my heart and to help me to feel the pain of others and to truly see and hear them. It has encompassed a prayer that He might still my soul so that I can draw closer to Him through His Word. 

In a world where the enemy has found a powerful ally in world’s distractions, it’s time for God’s people to pant.

Happy new year.

Ps. Andrew

WHERE TO MINE IF YOU WANT TRUE RICHES

WHERE TO MINE IF YOU WANT TRUE RICHES 

Great wealth comes from mining. Australia has benefited greatly from its recent mining boom, making us one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Many of Australia’s cities and towns exist because of mining and many of supportive communities have grown as a result. We saw this dramatically a few years ago when the ‘Beaconsfield Mine Disaster’ happened just a few minutes up the road from where our church is and how it affected our community. Of course, without mining, we could not have our precious technology which depend upon the silicon, copper, bauxite, neodymium, gold, and silver being mined. The world owes a lot to mining. Mining is a primary industry. So is farming. But farming has one massive advantage over mining. And curiously enough, I’ve noticed that the farming versus mining disparity not only applies to primary industries but even more aptly to our relationships.  

When I was growing up, nearly all of my uncles (with the exception of just one of the six), was a farmer. Dairy, beef, crops, sheep, and bees were their livelihoods. The thing about farmers is that they are dependent on sustaining their livelihoods. Miners, on the other hand, cannot sustain their supply of what they mine. Once it’s mined, it’s gone

If you drive around Tasmania you’ll see what appear to be roadside forests. But upon closer inspection, there’s something a little odd about these roadside forests: all the trees are in straight rows. As any local can tell you, there’s a reason for that. These aren’t really forests. They’re plantations. Many of them were planted ten or fifteen years ago, some even sooner. Some harvests in life take that long.

Let me jump straight to my concluding point. If we ‘mine’ those around us – especially those closest to us – we are treating them as if they are expendable, something to be tossed aside when we’re finished with them. But if we farm our relationships, we grow them and they are not only enlarged they are sustained. This means: the one who loves best loves the most for the longest. The husband who treats his wife as an object is not farming. He is mining. And because of his neglect he is the one who is depriving himself of some of the richest blessings this life offers.

¶ The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
Genesis 2:15

The very first wedding took place in a garden. The symbolism is rich. The original picture takes place in an environment where there has been planning, planting, cultivation, tending, watering and feeding. Marriage began in a garden and, in many respects, is a garden. In the Song of Solomon the love between a husband and his wife is described as being like the relationship between a gardener and a garden. 

¶ Awake, O north wind,
and come, O south wind!
Blow upon my garden,
let its spices flow.
Let my beloved come to his garden,
and eat its choicest fruits.
Song of Solomon 4:16

Farming involves tending, sowing, nurturing, watering, and feeding. To reap a harvest of intimacy you must sow trust and fertilise it with consistency and mulch it with understanding and transparency. This type of farming produces bountiful harvests. This is the essence of being faithful in marriage. The boy who learns to go off partying with his mates looking to ‘pick up’ a girl for a cheap thrill is learning to treat women as objects to be be ‘mined’. No woman deserves to be treated like this! This is why pornography is so insidiously evil and grossly unjust! But the boy who is taught that women are a treasure to be prized, guarded, and respected is learning how to farm for the day when his future love is in his life so that he will reap a life-time-together harvest. This is why “dating” (where there is no realistic expectation that it will lead to marriage) is not really a Biblical concept. Rather, the Biblical prescription seems to be friendship within community leading to a courtship with the permission of relevant authorities within that community (particularly parental approval). Parents play a key role in helping their children to relationally ‘farm’ their love for another.

OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

Our relationship with God though, has parallels with both mining and farming. Some people inflect a deprived spiritual childhood upon themselves by only ever raking the surface of a relationship with God. If only they would dig like a miner! The treasures they would find! Raking, at best, can summon leaves, twigs, and dirt. But digging can be the means by which one discovers gold, gems, precious metals, and even life-sustaining water. 

¶ My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you…if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures,
Proverb 2:1, 4

The only difference between natural and supernatural mining is that the metals and gems of earth are finite and limited, where as the treasures to found in a relationship with Christ are unlimited and infinite or to use the language of The Mine, they are unsearchable! 

¶ Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
Romans 11:33

to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,
Ephesians 3:8b

And our relationship with God is also a farming one. He is the Gardener who plans, plants, tends, prunes, waters, feeds and harvests. 

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”
John 15:1-2

The Milky Way clearly visible over my house from my backyard. This is yet another example of the incredible riches that are often ours for the taking but yet go unnoticed and ignored.

But God is also a limitlessly fertile field into whom we can sow our time, talent and treasure. 

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
Galatians 6:7-8

In one sense, our devotion to God by Scripture reading, study, and memorisation, is mining our relationship with God while our good deeds including prayer, worship, witnessing, serving the Body of Christ, is farming our relationship with God. Australia’s wealth has been based on farming and mining. Even with all the high-tech advances in the global economy, people are always going to what mining and farming give us. While ‘mining’ has no place in our relationships with each other, especially for those who are married, it can and should share the basis of our relationship with God along with ‘farming’. After you finish reading these few brief thoughts, I invite you to begin ‘mining’ your relationship with God through the reading of Scripture and to make a commitment to spiritually ‘farm’ your relationship with God as well by sowing good deeds in the Name of Christ.

¶ The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully …  ¶ He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.
Second Corinthians 9:6, 10

Your spiritual mining-rights entitlements and harvest awaits.

Amen.

DID YOU HEAR?

As you know, you have three sets of ears. But what you may not have heard is that not everybody knows how to use them. You don't have to be deaf to not hear - you just have to not listen. Even though many people have ears on the sides of their heads that are in reasonable condition, they may not use them particularly well. This is called selective hearing. But selective hearing not only effects the outermost ears, it can effect a person's inner ears as well. 

¶ Wisdom cries aloud in the street,
in the markets she raises her voice;
at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
Because I have called and you refused to listen,
have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded
Proverbs 1:20-21, 24

Our second set of ears are not really "ears" because they involve our eyes as much as our ears. Hearing what someone is really saying requires seeing, looking, noticing, asking, and remembering. 

¶ Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;
James 1:19

Even though we all have these second ears, it takes practice and training to learn how to use them. It seems that women are more adept at this form of listening. But when a man is introduced to his second ears it opens up a whole new way of seeing the world to him. It helps him to understand what his wife has really been saying to him. This is one of the most components in pre-marriage counselling when a couple is introduced to the five levels of communication (which start with clichés, then secondly facts, and so on). When we get to Level 3 communication, we introduce a new set of listening skills to the couple. This is a three stage process of listening. Stage 1 is "Active Listening". Stage 2 is "Reactive Listening". And Stage 3 is "Responsive Listening". Each stage is sequential. That is, you cannot do Stage 3 listening unless you've done Stages 1 and 2. This is one of the most difficult phases of the pre-marriage preparation for a couple. It requires learning to hear what they previously thought was criticism as heart. Reactive listening involves posture, mood, engagement, and openness. Have you ever tried to tell someone something they just wouldn't hear? Do people find it difficult to be frank and open with you? If you learn to be a positively reactive listener (give verbal cues that you're listening, smile with your eyes as they talk to you, don't interrupt them, don't be defensive, thank them for the courage and willingness to share with you) you may well find that more people want to talk with you.

And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Mark 7:35

HEAR HEAR

What stops us from hearing with our first two sets of ears? Even though your physical ears work adequately, you can zone out and not hear what someone is saying to you (this is a common complaint that wives have with their husbands). We might have a lot on our minds. We may be stressed. We may be disinterested. Even though someone is talking clearly and directly to us, we may not be hearing them. Listening with your first set of ears requires concentration and this requires practice. 

Even though we hear the words and sentences of the one talking to us, we can still mis-hear or even not hear what is really being said. This requires what we call in pre-marriage counseling, Level 3 hearing. This is where you begin to listen to other person's heart. In the West we automatically correlate heart with emotions. But in the Ancient World, the heart was where the mind resided. Often times someone is sharing their heart when they sound opinionated. It's easy to hear arrogance and miss that they are telling you they trust you enough to share their opinion with you.

But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts?
Matthew 9:4

Hearing someone's heart does not come naturally. It might be possible to develop it without some training, but like anything learned the hard way, it would have to be learned the hard way. You could start by asking the one talking to you things like, "Help me to understand what you're really saying." "Are you saying...?" By restating to someone what you heard them say you are learning how to hear with your first two sets of ears. It's with your second set of ears that you hear and take note of what someone isn't telling you. These ears are used to hear hesitation. These ears are used to detect sadness, loneliness, excitement, fear, or care. But we all have a third set of ears.

HEAR HEAR HEAR

If our first two sets of ears require training and practise, our third set probably does as well. These are our spiritualears. We all have them - not just 'religious' people. I'm a professional communicator. I spend my life communicating with people. Despite it being my profession and despite how hard I work at it, I am still not heard by some. Even though I am speaking clearly and even though there is nothing obstructing the sound of my voice from being heard, and though my language and vocabulary are quite understandable, people still misunderstand me at times and therefore do not truly me. Successful communication involves two dynamics: what is communicated and what is communicated. To put it another way- what is intended to be communicated, and what is actually communicated. 

It is one of the most profound truths a person can experience. God speaks. You don't need to take a seminar on hearing from God because when God speaks to you the way we see Him often speaking to someone in the Bible, He was clearly heard by those He intended to communicate with. This was almost always at moments of 'Redemptive History' (those moments involving people and actions which played an indispensable role in God saving the world through Christ). Most of the fellowship that people enjoyed with God was generally far less dramatic and usually subtle. I suspect that most of the fellowship between people and God during Bible times is not described in the Scriptures. 

And you said, 'Behold, the LORD our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire. This day we have seen God speak with man, and man still live. 
Deuteronomy 5:24

We have recently been reminded that Daniel and all the wise men of Babylon faced imminent death - unless one of them could tell Nebuchadnezzar his dream and its interpretation. When Daniel heard of this dire situation he asked his three friends to pray for him. He then went into deep prayer, seeking God for revelation. (God normally 'speaks' by revealing insights, or illuminating His Word, see 1Cor. 14:26, 30; 2Cor. 12:1.) 

"Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God."
John 8:47

People who say that when God speaks there is always absolute clarity and certainty about what God has said, also say that there is nothing a person can do to be more aware of what God  is saying. But there too many injunctions in the Scriptures to seek the Lord for this to always be the case.

But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Deuteronomy 4:29 

¶ I sought the LORD, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.Psalm 34:4 

And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
Hebrews 11:6

It is with our third set of ears that we hear God. For most of us, our biggest challenge will be learning how to use our first two pairs of ears. (It's uncanny how many people improve their spiritual ears after they've learned to use their first two pairs of ears). In the meantime, if you want to develop your spiritual ears, learn what the voice of God sounds like. Reading the Bible, attending worshipfully to the public preaching of God's Word, and regularly fellowshiping with fellow believers in an intentional small group, all help our spiritual ears to discern the voice of God with our spiritual ears. Do you hear me?

If anyone has an ear, let him hear:
Revelation 13:9

Ps. Andrew