{"id":260,"date":"2011-10-02T08:15:11","date_gmt":"2011-10-02T12:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.slentz.us\/wordpress\/?p=260"},"modified":"2011-10-02T08:15:11","modified_gmt":"2011-10-02T12:15:11","slug":"ears-to-hear-hearing-the-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slentz.org\/blog\/devotional\/ears-to-hear-hearing-the-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"Ears to Hear: Hearing the Coach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>10\/2\/2011 &#8212; David R. Slentz &#8212;<br \/>\nThose with\u00a0&#8220;Ears to Hear,&#8221; as Jesus referred to <em>(Mat. 13:9; Rev. 2:7; 2:11; 2:17; 2:26-29; 3:5-6; 3:12-13; 3:21-22)<\/em>,\u00a0listen to each Sunday&#8217;s message with an entirely different attitude. Consider how a quarterback\u00a0listens to his coach&#8217;s pre-game pep-talk\u00a0and compare that\u00a0to how we would listen were we watching the same speech on television. Certainly we\u00a0would be excited to listen in, but there would be something dramatically different occurring in that quarterback! He would be desparately grasping\u00a0onto of every phrase being shouted\u00a0from his coach&#8217;s mouth. Every word landing\u00a0upon his eardrums would send\u00a0a rush\u00a0off adrenaline surging through his bloodstream. Thigh muscles would be contracting and biceps would flex\u00a0as vivid\u00a0images\u00a0of breaking through the defense line fills his mind. Yet, the most drastic difference between us and that quarterback occurs when the pep-talk is over: That quarterback dashes out to the field with a shout, while we sit back in our lazyboy recliner with a handful of peanuts\u00a0and say, &#8220;Wow! That coach had an awesome\u00a0word today!&#8221; Perhaps this may also explain the difference between a &#8220;forgetful hearer&#8221; and an &#8220;effectual doer&#8221; (James 1:25).<br \/>\nWhile football may be exciting, how much more exciting\u00a0to know that we are actual players on the &#8220;Church-Team&#8221; of Jesus Christ, living in the last quarter and positioning ourselves together\u00a0on the last few yards before the end-zone of time! Hearing that is focused on purpose and\u00a0accomplishment &#8212; that is, getting out on the football field to put into play &#8212; is what\u00a0having &#8220;Ears to Hear&#8221;\u00a0is all about!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>10\/2\/2011 &#8212; David R. Slentz &#8212; Those with\u00a0&#8220;Ears to Hear,&#8221; as Jesus referred to (Mat. 13:9; Rev. 2:7; 2:11; 2:17; 2:26-29; 3:5-6; 3:12-13; 3:21-22),\u00a0listen to &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[76,93,109,225,240],"class_list":["post-260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotional","tag-ears-to-hear","tag-get-it","tag-hearing","tag-understanding","tag-word-of-god"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8ofw-4c","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slentz.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slentz.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slentz.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slentz.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slentz.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/slentz.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slentz.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slentz.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slentz.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}