Favor with God and man

Luke 2:51 & 52   And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and He continued in subjection to them; and His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.

   My niece commented about some family members who possess favor in the sight of God and man. For some this is obvious. After the conversation, I pondered those words and did a bit of digging into God’s Word. What do the Scriptures teach about obtaining favor with God and man? And what does that look like when applied to our lives?
   The context of the Luke 2 passage is Joseph and family going to Jerusalem to the Feast. On the way back home they realize Jesus isn’t with them. They return to the temple and see Jesus. Notice verse 46, “after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.”
   Here we receive a clue as to finding favor with God and man. Jesus was listening. Not talking. He was listening. He wasn’t revealing His cards as being God’s only begotten Son. He was attentively listening. The Greek word is akouo. We get our word acoustic from that root. So, we understand Jesus listening to God’s Word (favor with God) and listening to the teacher (favor with man). To top things off we know he was attentive because he asked questions of the teachers. Again what we have is the Son of God asking others about God’s Word. He verbalized His interest in others and their thoughts.
   An interesting thing to note as each of us evaluate our personal life is how well do we listen? Do we listen to others just long enough to find an opening and throw in our own opinion? Or, do we listen well enough to ask more questions and dig deeper into the soul of the speaker?
   If you want a bit more study on the subject, wrap your hands around a cup hot chocolate, pull up that fuzzy afghan, stoke the fire, (I’m assuming your weather is cold wherever you are), and spend some time with Luke and 1 Samuel 2:26. And may our prayer be that we do grow in wisdom, stature and favor with God and man. Amen.