Did you know the meaning of obeying is synonymous with hearing?

Sensing that I needed to make some life adjustments I began to seek the Lord. I knew I had to make some modifications to be more aligned to the purposes in which God has for me and our family. I decided to do a study on Hearing and Obeying God.

In my study, I found in Hebrew, there is no word for ‘Obey.’ It’s translated to Shema, and Shema means to hear or listen. Deut. 6:11 says, Hear, O Israel: The Lord, our God is one Lord. It is expected for the hearer to pay attention to what is being spoken and act upon it.” When Israel “hears“ the directions of God, they agree to act upon them.

That in itself blew me away. God expects us to hear Him and attend to what He is saying. While praying about several things and reading the scriptures I noticed God always seemed to answer prayer, unless something was indifferent. Now knowing that obeying is synonymous with hearing, I wanted to dig deeper into why I wasn’t hearing God. Studying further, I learned that the Greek perspective of obeying aligns with human reasoning, the emphasis is seeing spiritual things rather than hearing. I concluded that being a person of reason, most often I tried to figure things out for myself. A Greek mindset to obey looks like the following.

• We hear what God says.
• We evaluate the command based on our understanding.
• We make a choice to obey based on our evaluation.

I was putting my human reasoning first. I had a Greek mindset.

The Hebrew perspective emphasis is hearing God rather than seeing God. For we hear him in our hearts. Long ago, there was a prophetic rebuke for failure to hear, listen and hearken or attend.

Jesus says the in Mark 1:1 He says: “Listen, Israel, the Lord our God is the one and only Lord. To us today, He is One with, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. He says… Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. … (hear) If you fully obey (hear) the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you … Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Jesus did only what He heard the Father speaking and saw the Father doing (Jn. 5:19,20,30). The translation ‘hear’ His words mean to attend to what has been spoken.

God is looking for Shema Levor which means “Hearing Hearts“.

A hearing heart is a heart committed to God’s adjustments and alignments. A hearing heart is seeking the Lord, A heart whose intent is committed to obeying Him. But most importantly, a hearing heart is rooted in love.