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There is a message which has been entrusted to servants of God to proclaim throughout the world for the salvation of souls.
The Lord Jesus Christ calls it the word of the kingdom (Matthew 13:19) which is the gospel or the Good News of the kingdom of God.
Paul calls it the word of righteousness (Hebrews 5:13), the word of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:19), the word of faith (Romans 10:8) and the word of truth, the gospel of salvation (Ephesians 1:13).
Surprisingly, however, many people are unable to remember this word of the Kingdom of God after it has been preached to them.
Do you know why? In one of His teachings, the Lord Jesus gave a hint about why this happens to many people.
“When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path” (Matthew 13:19).
People differ in terms of how they receive the word that is preached to them. Preaching the word is sowing the word as a seed.
As the word is preached, people are expected to hear it, understand it, believe it and confess it. The word must be heard with the ear, understood and believed with the heart and confessed with the mouth.
However, some people hear the word as it is preached but they do not understand it. That is, they do not know what the word means, they do not grasp its meaning or comprehend how the word works to bring about eternal salvation.
They do not understand because often they do not attentively hear it, they do not pay attention to the speaker, they are preoccupied with other things in their hearts and they fail to ask questions for further explanation.
Consequently, as Jesus Christ indicates, the evil one who is the devil comes to remove the word from their hearts, making it impossible for the hearers to remember it and apply it or act on it.
This means that the secret to retaining, recalling and applying the word of God that has been preached or taught is understanding it. In other words, understanding the word that is preached is pivotal.
This places a responsibility on preachers and teachers of God’s word to develop relevant communication skills and be carried along by the Holy Spirit to proclaim it effectively.
Also, people who hear the word must learn from Christ Jesus how He listened to the teachings of the word of the Father, retained them and remembered them (Luke 2:46).
Jesus’ body, soul and spirit sat down to listen. In other words, the totality of His being sat down to attentively hear the word.
Besides, Christ Jesus after hearing the word asked questions to seek clarifications . That was necessary for Him to grasp deeper understanding.
Moreover, as Christ Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:20), there is no doubt that He had the Holy Spirit in His heart and heard the word by the Holy Spirit.
People who do not want the devil to snatch the word of the kingdom of God that is preached to them must imitate Christ Jesus and do what He did.
By James Quansah
