Hear And Heed

Love you all, praying for you. 
 
I just love God’s Word.  It confronts you.  Sometimes it’s encouraging, sometimes it challenging.  It’s uncomfortable, but needed.  Proverbs 12:15 – The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel.  How well do you hear and heed?  Heed has perhaps more than one application.  Part of the obedience family, but almost a precursor to obedience.  Watch yourself.  Like when Jesus said, “Take heed that you don’t despise one of these little ones, because their angels stand before your Father in heaven.”  Heed is almost like ‘be ready to obey” so you obey.  Heed: to mind; to regard with care, to take notice of; to attend to to observe – either fully implement, or watch to do it.   Sometimes heed means Guard yourself – in general.  Other times it’s specific, adjust course, do things a little differently than what you’ve been doing.  First – Guard yourself – be circumspect, be careful (like when God warned the Israelites to take heed, not to enter into any agreements with the people around them, that God was going to remove from the land.  Or when God said take heed to observe all these commands that I’m giving you today.  That Heed – is guard yourself, be careful to, be ready to.  But the other application of take heed, is hear and fully attend to, apply it completely.  Don’t ignore it, do it.  Some things God gives us are commands.  If you are convicted of a sin, that you’re doing and God said not to.  Stop doing it – or risk the discipline or judgment of God.  But other things God gives us are less obvious or black and white, they might be interrelated with several things.  Sometimes counsel can even come from unexpected places.   Do you hear and heed counsel?  If you hear something new or different.  You obviously don’t agree because it’s different than what you do.  What you do - you agree with and believe, that’s why you do it.  But what you hear, you do not agree with, and do not believe.  You just count it as someone else’s opinion.  Why?  Because you think your way is better?  Everyone thinks that way… it’s just human nature.  But if you remain in that mindset – will you ever learn to heed counsel?   If you hear counsel - separate the message from the messenger.  Delivery may not be perfect, they may have good intent toward you - or even ill intent toward you…  What does that matter?  Critics are notoriously negative, some are just meanspirited, but a wise man sifts through the bad review and extracts any truth it contains – even if it’s only 10% accurate amidst all the hating on you…  Is there any truth in what they said?  What might God want me to learn?.  Is there anything I could apply from this that would be Godly, helpful, or bring me closer to wisdom or excellence?  Here are a couple of questions to ask: when confronted or challenged:  #1 Is it Godly  #2 Is It Necessary  #3 Is it excellent?  (excellent isn’t necessary, its optional but advisable).  #4 What is God telling me to do?  #5 Am I willing to do it?   Hear and Heed often comes down to - Am I willing to do something differently than I am doing right now? If I am, I’ll heed – receive and be attentive to it, do it, implement it.  Mark 4:24 – Take heed how you hear. For with the measure you use it will be measured to you, to him that hears more will be given.  Whoever has will be given more, and whoever does not have, even what He has will be taken from him.  It’s talking about hearing and heeding.  If you hear and heed, you’ll get more – in direct proportion, but if you refuse to hear and heed, even the counsel you once received, will be lost on you.  Hear and Heed builds wisdom momentum in your life.  It’s required to grow in wisdom.  Praying that you’ll sift well, and hear and heed well.  So wisdom can grow in you.
 
Love you all,
dad