John 8:47 · World English Bible
John 8:47 Meaning He Who Is of God Hears
He who is of God hears the words of God. For this cause you don’t hear, because you are not of God.
What does John 8:47 mean?
Hearing depends entirely on which teacher the mind has joined itself to. A mind that rests in its true Source recognizes the words of love the moment they are spoken, because they are simply its own nature returned to it.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
John 8:47 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Christian Psychology
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Christian Psychology
Hearing depends entirely on which teacher the mind has joined itself to. A mind that rests in its true Source recognizes the words of love the moment they are spoken, because they are simply its own nature returned to it. When those words seem foreign, it is not that they were absent but that the mind was listening from the other side, tuned to fear, and fear cannot make out the language of love.
So deafness here is only a choice of allegiance, never a lack in what is offered. The words are always sounding; a mind hears them again the instant it remembers whose it is.
Words of God: the constant voice of love in the mind, heard the moment it is willing to belong again to its Source.
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Live John 8:47 today
- Drive or ride somewhere today with nothing playing. No podcast, no music, no catching up on messages. See what your mind sounds like when it is not being fed.
- In your next real conversation, drop whatever you were preparing to say and just take in the other person's words as if you had no position to defend. You will hear things you have been missing for years.
- When a message or email lands and your chest tightens, that tightening is the other channel. Put the phone face down for sixty seconds before you answer, and read it again from the calmer side.
Which voice have I been tuned to all morning, and did I choose it?
The same truth in other traditions
Rumi
He wrote that what you are seeking is also seeking you, and that the ear which cannot hear is only turned the wrong way. Longing itself is the proof that the call has already arrived.
Chandogya Upanishad
The teaching says the self you are listening for is already the listener. You do not acquire it by study, you recognize it, the way a person remembers their own name.
Zen
A student asks how to hear the sound of one hand. The point is not that a new sound must be produced, but that the listening must stop straining outward and settle into what is already here.
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