God does not want us to be hard-hearted
The heart is mentioned 779 times in the bible.
When scripture talks about the heart it is nearly always talking about the seat of our very being, rather than the pump which moves the blood in our circulatory system.
The bible tells us in Proverbs 4:23 Above all things guard your heart.
The heart is the heart of the problem
Mark 7:20-23 it is from out of the human heart that evil proceeds.
‘I am bound to the doctrine of the depravity of the human heart because I find myself depraved in heart and have daily proofs that in my flesh there dwells no good thing’.
Charles Spurgeon
God himself is Chasidic- his heart is soft and full of loving-kindness and mercy.
What kind of heart does God want you to have, a hard heart or a soft heart?
Can God change the human heart?
It is interesting that scripture talks about the Lord hardening Pharaoh’s heart. What do you think this means? The best explanation I have heard so far is that God simply took what was in Pharaoh’s heart and brought it to fullness.
Psalm 25:6 Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies, and thy loving kindnesses; for they have been ever of old.
Many scriptures reflect God’s tender heart and mercy.
Good King Josiah had a tender heart and was humble before God and openly showed it, then God heard his prayer. God will hear your soft and tender hearted prayer.
2 Kings 22:19 Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the LORD, when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and hast rent thy clothes, and wept before me; I also have heard thee, saith the LORD.
Medical atherosclerosis versus spiritual atherosclerosis
We are going to compare what can cause us medically speaking to have hardening of the arteries to see if there is spiritual equivalent that can affect our heart, the seat of our very being.
Medical atherosclerosis
Medically speaking, hardening of the arteries is known as atherosclerosis. Fatty plaques usually made of the ‘bad ‘cholesterol stick to the arterial walls. This causes the arteries (particularly the coronary artery) to lose their elasticity and become hardened and stiff. The flow of blood is restricted through the arteries and in the case of the coronary arteries can lead to a blockage which we call a heart attack.
Symptoms of atherosclerosis can vary with sometimes nothing obvious, or chest pain angina, breathlessness, high blood pressure etc.
Statins are drugs that not only stop cholesterol binding to the arterial walls but also can to some extent remove the fatty plaques where they already exist. This to put it crudely, is like having your drainpipes cleared out!
Spiritual atherosclerosis
There is something about day to day living that toughens us and can make us hardened. Especially in our relationships, we can become desensitized, cynical and make us hard hearted. We often hurt the people whom we love most who as the song goes- the one, we should not hurt all.
It is not just in our human relationships that can become hard hearted but also in our relationship with God.
Here are the possible symptoms are hardening of heart spiritually speaking.
1) Numbness: You stop feeling the things you should feel.
a) Love for God b) Conviction over sin c) Anger over injustice. d) Compassion for those who are hurting.
2) Dizziness:
You lose spiritual equilibrium and balance in life.
You become proud of yourself.
You become extremely tolerant or intolerant.
You become overconfident or less confident.
3) Shortness of Breath
When your heart is attacked, you lose your stamina
You lose your strength to fight
You start things well, but you finish poorly.
It is accepted practice for most health care professionals, that they keep a certain distance from their patients. However, as children of God we ought to be committed to true koinonia fellowship [1] with our fellow believers, by which we ought to lead caring and sharing lives. Thus, keeping our distance from each other is not the norm or acceptable practice.
Hard heartedness will produce unforgiveness, bitterness and lack of compassion, mercy, and reasonable tolerance of people.
Sometimes the hardening process is so gradual we do not notice it. Ask a biologist how to boil a frog? The answer of course is one degree at a time and that is usually how Satan hardens our hearts i.e. one step a time. If we progressively allow things that we know are not right and compromise our beliefs, then eventually our conscience will become seared, and we may cease to care for and share with our fellow human beings.
Romans 5:5
The Holy Spirit pours the love of God/Christ into our heart’s day by day.
But that flow can be restricted by various things we allow such as sin, bad attitudes, unforgiveness, and lack of reverence for God etc.
We need to keep our hearts wide open (2 Cor 6:11-13) so that the flow of God’s love will keep your heart soft and tender before God.
Hebrews 3:15 As has just been said: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion."
Three times in the book of Hebrews the writer tells God’s people ‘do not harden your hearts for it leads to rebellion, which in turn causes us to miss out on his blessings.
Amen
Personal Prayer
[1] See Acts 2:42 the Greek word koinonia is translated to the English as fellowship
In Part 2 we investigate why King Solomon asked God for a hearing heart.
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