09/15/21 IT TAKES TWO TO COMMUNICATE I console myself wit

09/15/21 IT TAKES TWO TO COMMUNICATE

I console myself with the idea that you can be a good teacher, even if you are not a "successful teacher." For instance a good teacher might be successful with one person and "unsuccessful" with another person (or another hundred persons).

In such a situation, the "failure" is due to the audience, not the teacher. Jesus was a great teacher, but most of the people who heard Him did not grasp or benefit from His teaching. This is why Jesus said, "he that has ears to hear, let him hear."

The failed hearer fails because he or she really does not listen.

Sometimes people don't listen with their ears.
sometimes people don't listen with their hearts.
Sometimes people don't mix what they hear with faith. They close out the word of God, and therefore they don't get the message because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

As the Scripture says, "...hearing they hear not, neither do they understand."

It is possible for a person to sit under good teaching, even great teaching, yet not get the message because they are not hearing with their hearts or they are not mixing what they hear with faith.

A successful hearer is the person who not only hears with his ears but also heeds and follows what he hears and becomes a doer of the word and not a hearer only.

So, whether I am a good teacher or not, my heart breaks when I pour myself into the life of a person who shuts off, closes out, turns from the truths that I teach, because that person is not simply rejecting me, he is rejecting God.