The Call
Everything on The Consider Podcast and website has to do with the call for all men and women to repent. Such is an offer of mercy for those willing to follow Jesus by hating their life and picking up their cross. After all, even the demons believe in God, but they are terrified. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that–and shudder. James 2:19
The Need for Self-Crucifixion
Audiobook
Text The Need for Self-Crucifixion
The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about. (Luke 18:34)
What kept the disciples from understanding what Jesus told them? Jesus spoke to them about being resurrected from the dead but the meaning of what He said was completely hidden from them. Why could they not understand and why was God not able to give them wisdom? I do not use the term “able” in the sense that God is not powerful enough, but to illustrate clearly that we ourselves stop the power of God from working in our lives. Just as Jesus could not do any miracles in His hometown because of unbelief, so too we cannot comprehend what God tells us because self-blocks the way.
Take a loaf of bread, for example. The disciples could not understand a miracle that involved loaves of bread because their hearts were hard. Jesus did not ask what school they went to but told them why they were deaf and why they could not remember. They had hard hearts. They could only hear their own voice and remained so self-absorbed that all they felt concerned with was themselves.
Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them, “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? (Mark 8:17–18)
Let us not sin by thinking we are any better than the apostles. Self, with all of its pride, will, desires, and wisdom, keeps us from hearing what Jesus says, let alone talking about obeying what He commands us to do. Remember the passage we looked at in Galatians? The one that spoke of Jesus being clearly portrayed as crucified? We must see the flesh crucified on the cross. We must understand, by illumination from the Holy Spirit, the total inability of ourselves to understand and obey what God speaks to us. Our hearts, minds, and flesh are mixed with so many evil motives that the only solution is to kill it. It must die on the cross as we pick up our daily cross if we want to gain ears that can hear.
Everything that we think we hear God tell us to do must be tested by the cross of Christ. For in this world, from beginning to end, the matter of hearing God’s voice flows from and to the cross. For this reason, Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:2, “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” It takes resolve not to give way to our wisdom about godly matters! It takes resolve to say no to fleshly desires. It takes resolve to not make a golden calf in the name of the Lord so that we can fool our- selves into thinking we do God’s will while we really please our flesh.
When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord” (Exodus 32:5)
The vast majority in the church today who declare they hear the voice of God tell them to do something, and claim that God gives them wisdom about Scripture, in reality worship a golden calf in the name of the Lord. To them, their doctrine, actions, and goals are as shiny as gold, but it is the golden calf that allows them to please themselves in the name of the Lord.
The solution is a cross that causes us to hate our own lives. To hate our time, comfort, wisdom, knowledge, desires, wants, and wills. Until a man hates his life, he is in no position to claim that he has ears to hear. Jesus did not command us to deny only aspects of ourselves.
The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. (John 12:25)
Jesus said we must deny self. All of self. All of who we are. To be born again means that yourself, who you are, is killed and a totally different person is born. Crucifixion is a slow process and God wants to crucify a little bit more of you daily. If you want ears to hear, then your ears must be killed by way of the cross.
A lack of Bible knowledge does not keep us from understanding God. It is not that we don’t have the proper steps down that enable us to hear and understand God speaking to us. We cannot hear because our hearts remain hard. God repeats in the book of Mark that the disciples could not understand what Jesus said because they had hard hearts. Many go to Bible college yet do not understand anything about the power of the cross. Why? Not from lack of Bible study and prayer, but because their hearts remain hardened.
. . . for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened. (Mark 6:52)
The disciples’ fleshly ears had heard Jesus speak words of wisdom and their ears had heard the once deaf shout for joy when healed. Yet their ears could not understand anything about Jesus or what He was about. Their notions of Him were vague ideas about Him being the Messiah. Just as it is with most people in the church, the apostles had a simple understanding that Jesus was the Messiah, but that was about it. How often we too, think we understand the will of God yet are as deaf as the disciples. Only the cross can crucify us so that we gain heavenly ears that can hear and understand what God does and wills.
Many churches and denominations do not have ears to hear, yet think they hear God. This delusion is most severe among those who think they teach the message of the cross. How easy it is for us to think our godless chatter is godly prayer. How easily we call false knowledge the wisdom that comes from the Holy Spirit.
Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith. Grace be with you. (1 Timothy 6:20–21)
Many have wandered from the faith. Not necessarily in giant leaps of forsaking the Lord, but in small missteps from the faith. They take one small opinion or desire and call it the voice of the Lord. The best example of this was when Jesus talked to a woman at the well about eternal life while his disciples tried to find something to eat. Although they traveled with Jesus, following Him everywhere, their bellies came first. The twelve called Him Rabbi, or Teacher, but they had not learned anything.
Meanwhile, his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something” (John 4:31)
Only God’s grace can crucify us and rescue us from a hard heart. If we want ears to hear then we must let God break the hard ground of our hearts. Opinions must die, our wills must be opposed and our most sacred of doctrines must be surrendered to the cross the Holy Spirit gives us to carry if we want ears that can hear.
Chapter 6: The need for self-crucifixion
- The apostles spent three years listening to every word Jesus spoke, yet they never understood His meaning. Why did the Cross open their ears to understand?
- What golden caves do you see in the church today?
- What other voices do you hear in your life? Do you find it hard to crucify these other voices? What things keep your heart hard? List some ways you could soften your heart and open your ears.
Ears to Hear: Chapter 7 | [Continue to Next Chapter →]
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