Apply your Heart and your Ear

Apply your heart to instruction

And your ear to words of knowledge.

Proverbs 23:12

I like to read. If you spend any length of time with me, you will hear me start expounding the virtues of listening to books. I started listening to books last year, and it has opened up a whole new world for me. Do you realize how many listening hours you have? Do you realize how many wasted hours we have in our day that we could be listening to a book? I listen to books while I am driving (obvious), doing laundry, doing dishes, making meals, doing other chores around the house. Sometimes, if the book is really good and I can’t wait to find out what happens next, I will listen while I am outside feeding the birds and the cats. I don’t like to do that very often though because when I am outside I want to hear all the beautiful creatures and outside noises. I read/listened (because I still actually do read) 70 books last year. My goal for this year is 100 books. In January, I listened to 10 books so I am well on my way.

I listen to a wide variety of books, but the books that I take the time to actually read the printed word are books that help me in my Christian walk. I call these my “counseling books.” They are the books that help me to better understand the people that God has sent for me to use His Word to counsel them through the difficult circumstances of life. No matter what book I am reading to assist someone else, there are always truths from God’s Word that I can apply to my own life.

As a believer in Jesus Christ and what He did for me on the cross, I am always endeavoring to progress in my sanctification. I want to be more like Christ every day. Progressive sanctification is a process whereby I take the truth of God’s Word and apply it to my life so that each day I look more and more like Christ and less and less like my “old self.”(Eph. 4: 22) I will not accomplish this overnight nor will I accomplish it this side of heaven, but I want to be progressing. I want to be growing.

What are you applying yourself to? What are you listening to? What are you spending your time doing? One of the books that I listened to talked about the impact of our cell phones. It was a secular book, but I was very convicted by what it said. Because of that book, I have started turning my phone to airplane mode while I am spending time with the Lord. That way I don’t have to be distracted by it. When I am reading my Bible and spending time in prayer, this needs to be uninterrupted time with my Lord. How can I apply myself to the truth of Scripture if I keep allowing myself to be interrupted by my phone?

The idea of applying your heart (Prov. 23:12) gives us the idea that we need to apply our desires and the things that we love to instruction. Do we want to allow our desires to learn the truth of Scripture or do we want to allow them to run rampant in our lives? What we are filling our thoughts and our time with shows us what it is that we desire.

Are we desiring to grow in our sanctification? We will diligently apply ourselves and listen to things that help us to grow and be more like Christ. What do we listen to? We also need to “apply our ears to words of knowledge.” (Prov. 23:12). As the saying goes “garbage in, garbage out.”

We all have the same 24 hours in our day. We also have control over many parts of our day. During the times that you can control, what are you choosing to apply yourself to? What are you choosing to listen to? You know how you spend your time. Allow the Lord to convict you as He has me, to be spending your time applying yourself to the learning and practicing of His Word. Let 2024 be the year, that you look more like Christ and less like your old self.