Hear, Understand & Obey

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Time to focus on what makes good soil for the seed of the word of God. First, the good heart soil is one "who hears" and "understands" the word of God. Or, as titled above, it is the one individual who hears, understands, and obeys.

According to Romans 10:17, "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." At certain times, when we hear the word of God –in church, small group or reading out loud to oneself– we are blessed by the Holy Spirit to "get" what God is trying to convey to us at a certain time. In many ways, it is like a solution to a mystery that is revealed to us for our sake, or as Proverbs 25:2 states, "It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out."

Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.…As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.

-Matthew 13:8, 23 (ESV)

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Why is hearing, understanding and obeying important with regard to the word of God? I believe it has to do with communication and relationships. The choices I make due to what I perceive that I "hear" when another person interacts with me by word or deed will either deepen an interaction into a relationship or leave the interaction at only a surface transactional level. From what I "hear" from the word of God, I may perceive that God is a just, righteous and a loving being or that He is a being that is just like any human with faults and all.

With good heart soil, an individual who hears the word of God follows Paul's simple formula to salvation in Christ Jesus, as noted in Romans 10:8-10,

“The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved."

What are your thoughts on the hearing, understanding and obeying as to salvation explained in Romans 10? Does it truly build faith? How about zeal?