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Listen

 James 1:19 ESV  Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;  As the Turkish proverbs goes, if speaking is silver, listening is golden. Speaking is easy; listening is hard. James calls us to be quick to listen and slow to speak. We have two ears and one mouth. This suggests that we should listen about twice as much as we speak! We have a good record of Jesus's words, but he is the ultimate listener too, to respond appropriately to his hearers. James isn't just telling us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, or even to seek to emulate Christ. He reminds us that we're brethren. We're adopted into God's family through faith in Jesus. Anger isn't necessarily wrong. In our anger we're not to sin. We're not to be quick tempered. 'Abba God, we praise you for adopting us into your family. Please help us to display the family characteristics: to be good, temperate listeners. For the glory of your name, a...
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Listen!

  Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing upon Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the disaster that I have pronounced against them, because I have spoken to them and they have not listened, I have called to them and they have not answered. Jeremiah 35:17 ESV In the context, the Rechabites were better at keeping their family traditions than the Jews were at obeying the word of the Lord. God respected the Rechabites nomadic teetotalism. His temper was frayed with His people as a whole however. We don't have to be nomadic. Yet we should remember that this world is not our home, we're just passing through. We shouldn't get too comfortable. We don't have to be teetotal. Yet we must never get drunk on alcohol. We should be sober minded as we consider the eternity to come. Thankfully, salvation is available to us in Christ crucified. Yet we must listen to the way of salvation. If we close our ears to calls to ...
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Listen!

  My God will reject them because they have not listened to him; they shall be wanderers among the nations. Hosea 9:17 ESV https://bible.com/bible/59/hos.9.17.ESV Hosea's condemnation of Israel isn't cause for anti-Semitism, but sombre self reflection. If God rejected people who assumed they were His, then we should beware if we're professing Christians. Even if we aren't Christians, but think God is on our side, we should examine ourselves. Do we listen to God? We might not get to hear Him audibly, but we can listen to His word the Bible. Are we listening? If we ignore God, even if we're paying Him lip service, it doesn't bode well for us. God doesn't reject us like an overly jealous lover. Instead, if we reject Him, He will reject us. Even to this day, there's a Jewish diaspora throughout the world. Biblically, this is because they have by and large rejected God and their Messiah Jesus. In His mercy, God has returned many to their homeland, but s...
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