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Wednesday, Jan 10 - Surrendering Your Eyes & Ears
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DEVOTIONAL: “SURRENDERING YOUR EYES & EARS”
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Imagine what life would be like if you couldn’t hear or see. Your under-standing of the world would be severely limited.
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The same goes for us spiritually. If our spiritual eyes and ears aren’t open, our understanding of God’s Kingdom is limited. Thankfully, Jesus has opened the spiritual eyes and ears of His followers (Matthew 13:16-17), enabling them to “know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 13:11)
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But what do you do with this knowledge? And how can you use this knowledge to guide what you choose to see and hear?
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Psalm 119:105 states that when your spiritual eyes are open, God’s Word “is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” What a beautiful and powerful thought! Yet, it’s not easy to let God’s Word light your path. We live in a world saturated by so many different sights and sounds that sometimes darkness creeps in. This is why Jesus said,
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“The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23).
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Therefore, we need to guard our lamp. We need to surrender what we see and hear to Christ, and use His Word to screen out what is damaging to our souls. However, this surrender is not an act of legalism or cruel deprivation, but one of worship out of reverence to the holy calling we have to follow His Word. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). This means God dwells within us, and we need to allow Him to help us keep His Temple clean and the lamp shining bright.
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While surrendering your eyes and ears to Christ might mean excluding certain sights and sounds from your life, it can also mean intentionally including certain things in your life, like reading the Bible, listening to worship music, watching a sunrise, or simply unplugging everything to sit in quiet meditation and prayer, all to create space to hear the voice of God and see His path for you. His ways are beautiful, and I want you to see and hear them!
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Father, please help me to surrender to Your ways. I don’t always want to guard my eyes and ears because so many things in the world are so alluring. Please help me to know what is best for me and guide me to those things. Help me to meditate on Your words and truths so that I and others will be drawn to Your glory. Amen.
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Ask the Holy Spirit to help you answer the following:
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- “What is one thing I need to block from my eyes or ears?
- “What is one thing I can intentionally look at or listen to in order to worship You more fully today?”
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