In ancient
Greece it was customary for peddlers who walked the
streets with their wares to cry out, "What do you lack?"
The idea was to let people know they were in the vicinity,
and also rouse the curiosity of the people.
Coming out of their houses they would want to know what the peddler was selling. It might be something they lacked and needed, or simply something they desired.
What do you lack? We may have sight and hearing, but what do we lack? Take an honest inventory of yourself. Have you found contentment? Are you close enough to God to receive guidance and strength through His word? Have you secured peace of heart and peace of mind, invaluable assets in life?
Deciding what we lack is the first step in securing it. Christ can fulfill the deepest needs of our heart, mind, and soul.
The man in Mark 7 lacked the physical ability to hear. But many of us lack the spiritual ability to hear. We suffer a kind of a spiritual deafness. The affliction of not listening to God, or, to put it another way, the affliction of physically listening to God (through study of His word), yet failing to comprehend, to understand, and come to grips with what He is saying, is a great plague upon the Church. For, you see, it is possible to listen to God's instructions as written in the Bible, yet fail to really hear.
Seriously consider these words of James, "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed" (James 1:19-25).
-Tom Moore; via THE SOWER, a weekly publication of the Arthur church of Christ, Arthur, IL. Ron Bartanen, who serves as minister and editor, may be contacted through the congregation's website: http://www.arthurchurchofchrist.com
Coming out of their houses they would want to know what the peddler was selling. It might be something they lacked and needed, or simply something they desired.
What do you lack? We may have sight and hearing, but what do we lack? Take an honest inventory of yourself. Have you found contentment? Are you close enough to God to receive guidance and strength through His word? Have you secured peace of heart and peace of mind, invaluable assets in life?
Deciding what we lack is the first step in securing it. Christ can fulfill the deepest needs of our heart, mind, and soul.
The man in Mark 7 lacked the physical ability to hear. But many of us lack the spiritual ability to hear. We suffer a kind of a spiritual deafness. The affliction of not listening to God, or, to put it another way, the affliction of physically listening to God (through study of His word), yet failing to comprehend, to understand, and come to grips with what He is saying, is a great plague upon the Church. For, you see, it is possible to listen to God's instructions as written in the Bible, yet fail to really hear.
Seriously consider these words of James, "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed" (James 1:19-25).
-Tom Moore; via THE SOWER, a weekly publication of the Arthur church of Christ, Arthur, IL. Ron Bartanen, who serves as minister and editor, may be contacted through the congregation's website: http://www.arthurchurchofchrist.com
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