Some “through the bible” thoughts from Hebrews 3 and 4.
“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Hebrews 3:8,15; 4:7). The writer quotes Psalm 95 three times. He really wanted to get this point across.
Hardened hearts rebelled and disobeyed. Even after all he had done for them, God’s people refused to trust him.
When are we most likely to harden our hearts? Is it when God tells us something we don’t want to hear? Or commands something we don’t want to do? Or promises something that sounds too good to be true?
Or is it too late? Is that simply the way we are? In Ezekiel 36, God promises to replace idolatrous hearts of stone with Spirit-filled hearts of flesh. The bible says we’re stone-cold dead in sin until God makes us alive in Christ.
A better question is how does God soften my heart? How does he get me to listen and trust him? How does God get me to obey?
Well, for one thing, he gives us each other. “Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13).
He gives us his son, Jesus Christ, a gift from before the creation of the world (4:3). He dies with our sin and hardened hearts, so we can have his eternally living, beating heart.
I might be hard-headed, stiff-necked, and stubborn. But he knows how to touch my heart with mercy and grace. That’s not only heart-changing. It’s life-changing.
Waite for it... 