"Anyone who has ears should take time to listen and understand! 'Anyone who has ears must listen to the Spirit, heed what the Spirit is saying to the Churches.'" - Revelation 3:22When we become born again by putting our faith in Christ, we become a new creation in Him. God gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit: new spiritual ears and spiritual eyes to help us, as believers, to see, hear, and understand God’s spiritual truths and to discern when God is speaking to us through His Holy Spirit within us. The Holy Spirit is our helper who gives us power, and direction, reveals things about the future, and helps us pray when we do not know what to pray about. The Holy Spirit speaks to us, but like a baby who hears from birth but does not understand, comprehension takes time and requires our focus, attention, and patience to truly learn and understand.
When we are born again in Christ, we need to take our time to ensure that the troubles, stress, and anxieties of life do not distract us and that we do not neglect hearing from God as one of our most urgent priorities in life.
We can miss what God is telling us when we are more focused on the secondary things of life, or we can be like Martha who was too busy serving and missed out on sitting at Christ’s feet like Mary did, learning and understanding from His teachings.
Mary’s devotion and taking time to listen to Christ's words made her the first person to wake up early to go to Christ’s tomb, while others were still in deep mourning after Christ’s death on the cross. Christ rewarded her devotion and faith by appearing to her first when He rose from the grave on resurrection day.
We should also learn to be patient and take our time to focus and hear from God through His Holy Spirit within us. We should remember our Lord’s saying, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me” (Revelation 3:20).