Do Not Harden Your Heart! - Part 4

If you continue to test God, refuse to get on board when you see Him at work, and go astray in your heart, Hebrews 3 tells us you are hardening your heart. Why am I spending all this time talking about this one subject? This is the most dangerous thing you can do!

Hardening your heart will always lead you to a bad place.

Hebrews 3:11 says: As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest.'"

Moses lead the Israelites through the wilderness to take them to the land God promised to give them. Instead of joyfully pressing on by faith, the people complained and doubted God! Their hard-heartedness reached this point: God said, “You’re done. You are not receiving this land. Your children will, but you won’t.” So nobody entered the land until the rebellious generation died out!

I wish the story had a happier ending for them, but it doesn’t. Their persistent rebellion didn’t take them where God wanted them to be. It took them to a sad, miserable end.

And so it goes with hard-heartedness. When you harden your heart (you DID read the last 3 blogs, right?), you aren’t heading anywhere good. No favorable result, no blessing, no joy has ever come from it.

God has provided perfect rest for your soul. It is in the person of Jesus Christ. Are you resting in Him? Are you keeping your eyes toward the ultimate fulfillment of rest: eternity in glory with Christ and His people?

If you have not received Christ, but insist upon hardening your heart, you are not going to win. You are not going to look back someday and say, “Yeah, rejecting God was the right choice. I am in a better place for it.”

Make today the day you cry out: God, forgive me for hardening my heart against you. Only you can change me from the inside out. Because Jesus died for my sins and rose to give me life, I can experience rest now… and for eternity.

p.s. - resting in peace

Do Not Harden Your Heart - Part 3

Do not harden your heart.

God’s Word is deadly serious about this. Hardening your heart against God and His ways is the most dangerous thing you can do on this side of eternity.

Previously, we studied from Hebrews 3:

1. You harden your heart when you test God.
    
2. You harden your heart when you see God at work and still won’t get on board.
   
   How else do you harden your heart?
    
3. You harden your heart by going astray (v10)

God looked down on these Israelites, and His assessment was this: They always go astray in their hearts.

What is “going astray”? Quite simply, it’s when you know what you need to do, what’s right to do, and just choose to refuse to do it. This is called sin of omission. The other way is through sin of commission - I know what I am not supposed to do, and I do it anyways.

Sin is a choice. Every time. You have two paths before you, the one you know will honor God, and the one you should avoid.

I shouldn’t be in this relationship, but…

I shouldn’t feed this addiction, but…

I shouldn’t talk like that, but…

Usually after “but” is your excuse to do it. What really goes after “but” should be, “But I am choosing to go astray and harden my heart.”

What is God’s Spirit convincing you about your life right now? In what particular area are you going astray? The great news is God allows U-turns! Make today the day you mortify the flesh, and its excuses, and cease from waywardness. Get back to following the Shepherd! 

The danger of hardening your heart is the longer you put off getting back on track, the more difficult it becomes! Do it now!

p.s. - no excuses

Do Not Harden Your Heart - Part 2

Do not harden your heart.

God warns us in His Word over and over and over. The Lord is so passionate and compassionate about warning us, so we should stop everything and take a look at ourselves. Hardening your heart is the absolute worst thing you can do!

Previously, we saw:

1 - You harden your heart when you test God (Hebrews 3:8-9)

What does it mean to test God? It simply means demanding, as a test, to see if He can provide. You aren’t satisfied with what God has provided and start to insist upon more, different, or better, and it is up to God to prove Himself to you by giving you what you want. Doing this hardens your heart!

You callous your heart against God by saying “no” to Him on any matter. Then it becomes so much easier to say “no” thenext time. Heart gets harder, saying “no” gets easier.

For instance, you are sitting in church and the preacher is telling you about Jesus, and you think, “I should receive Christ, I should get serious about spiritual matters.” But you talk yourself out of it, that is, you tell God “no”. The next time the Holy Spirit gives you that nudge, it is much easier to say no. So begins the journey on the world’s most dangerous road.

So here is the next warning from Hebrews:

2 - You harden your heart when you see God at work and still won’t get on board.

Hebrews 3:7-9

says: Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. (emphasis mine)

Here is a sure and tragic way to get a hard heart: be right in the middle of what God is doing, but still refuse to allow God to be in the middle of you.

These people being spoken of here did not simply hear of God’s works, or read about God’s works… they saw His works! Firsthand, eyewitness, front row seats! And what would they have seen? The plagues of Egypt, water from a rock, manna from heaven, God’s glory leading the exodus, God’s judgment upon the wicked… we aren’t talking about minor things a skeptic could explain away. We are talking about earth shaking acts of God! And don’t think these were just a couple isolated incidences. They saw God’s hand actively at work for… 40 years. That blows my mind. I am 36 as of the time of typing this. I am trying to imagine seeing God at work for my entire life plus another 4 years! And then walking away doubting and disbelieving.

The problem is just that: disbelief. “I will not believe.” Unbelief never has enough proof. Even if God is standing in front of your face (literally: Matthew 12:38-41).

Think of everything that they saw and still would not believe. But what have you seen? Think of the exposure you and I have had to God at work. Lives changed, forgiveness offered, reconciliation in families, divorces averted, finances provided, health restored…

Come to a passionate worship service sometime. To see people, hands raised, crying out praise. To see the power of the Word at work in people. To hear the testimonies of changed lives…

God is still actively at work, and you do see it! But what are you doing about it? Have you responded in belief? Can you say, “I am seeing the awesomeness of God! I want to be passionately growing in Him and used by Him!” Or are you content to walk away unchanged, not because God is inactive, but because your heart is so hardened?

Do not deny Him. Get on board. Today!!!

p.s. - 40 years?! That’s, like, forever…!

Do Not Harden Your Heart - Part 1

If God says something once, I would hope you would listen. If He says something twice, I would expect you to really listen. If He says something three times, I would hope you drop everything and really, really listen.

What if He says something four times? In Hebrews chapter 3, verses 8, 13, 14, and chapter 4, verse 7, the Lord keeps repeating a warning. And He is repeating something He said way back in Psalm 95. OK, now I am starting to lose count, but this must be pretty important if He keeps warning us over and over. And what is the command / warning?

Do not harden your heart.

Hebrews was written to Jews, some who believed in Jesus and some who didn’t. Knowing about Jesus does not equalknowing Jesus.

And there is a real danger in seeing Bible facts in front of you, and not doing something with them. Specifically, seeing who Jesus Christ is, and not receiving Him!

So if God warns us, “Do not harden your heart” - then what does that mean? How does someone harden their heart?

Hebrews 3:9-10 gives us the example: Israel. Don’t do what they did!

You remember the story, right? Israel was in Egypt for 400 years, 200 of them as slaves. God delivered them through Moses, and you might have expected a joyful trip to the Promised Land. Read Exodus through Deuteronomy. Not very joyful, that group. Saw God at work, but were never happy.

This is as serious as it gets, so let’s let God’s Word get specific with the warning so we don’t fall into the same trap! How did the Israelites harden their hearts? And how could we? Let's go through the text together.

1 - You harden your heart when you test God (Hebrews 3:8-9)

We can read the OT and ask, “What were they thinking?” But you know we all have a tendency to repeat the previous generation’s sins. And the Israelites first charge was testing God.

What does it mean to test God? It simply means demanding, as a test, to see if He can provide. Check out Exodus 17:7 - as soon as God provides something, they started complaining again.

Heart check time - are you a complainer? Nothing is ever enough, or good enough, or cheap enough, or expensive enough, or easy enough, or hard enough… You aren’t satisfied with what God has provided and start to insist upon more, different, or better, and it is up to God to prove Himself to you by giving you what you want. That is testing God.

Complaining turns oh so quickly to testing… Almost as if your belief, your commitment, and your love are all contingent upon God first passing your initiation test by handing over your demands.

“Well, if there is a God, He would have…”

“If God really exists, He would not…”

“I’m going to start going to church if God will just take care of this thing…”

“I would be more serious about God if He would…”

A heart already bent on this type of demanding, already warped into a misunderstanding on which one of us is God and which one isn’t, can’t be heading anywhere good. And when the heart is aligned already towards discontentment, however God would choose to act would still be met with discontentment. It’s not a “can’t win” for God - it’s a “won’t win” for you!

Choose to test God, choose to harden your heart. Choose to harden your heart, choose to forfeit the blessings God wants to pour into your life.

p.s. - owed nothing, given everything