Posted on 07/24/2015 9:32:18 PM PDT by Cecilia Trent
A hardened heart is unnatural. Sadly many of God's children are walking around with hearts so hardened that they are unable to experience intimacy with God, themselves or others. Since we were created for connection and relationship with God first then others, a hardened heart will cause us to live isolated and withdrawn never truly experiencing the joy, peace, love and the abundant life that Jesus came to give us.
How does a heart hardened? A prolonged struggle. Perhaps you have grown weary in the trial even blaming God for not changing the circumstances. Maybe you have a deep wound, or a broken heart that has caused you to put up walls. When we do this, our defenses go up. It won't let anyone in including God. Self protection separates and leaves us running on reserve, alone and isolated. We were not meant to live that way. We were designed for intimacy. It may seem easier to be hard than soft and vulnerable but you were not created to live that way. God made you to be tender and responsive.
God wants to shape your heart but it's hard to shape stone. You must be willing to let the living God come in, heal your wounds and tear down your self protection and defenses. The amplified version of Ezekeil 11:19 describes beautifully what happens when we surrender our stony hearts to our loving God.
(Excerpt) Read more at growingupintheword.blogspot.com ...
Disbelief.
Getting comfortable with the world. The world has values, God has different ones.
Burn it all down... the forest has too much crap in the underbrush only the cleansing wrath of nature’s fire which god controls can heal the land at this point.
I jaded at this point...
“How does a heart hardened?”
What?
When I was in third grade, I went to a Catholic school. Actually, it was my last year in a Catholic school, my parents put me into public schools from fourth grade on.
One of my strongest memories of that year was from Religion class. One of the priests came to teach the class occasionally, and I liked him. He was interesting, and made me think.
In one of the classes he told us that there actually was an unforgivable sin, a sin that God would not forgive.
Now this came as a real surprise to me because we had been told over and over again, since Kindergarten, that God would forgive any sin, as long as you confessed and repented sincerely and asked Him to forgive you. To find out that this statement had an exception was very thought provoking to me.
The priest was very clever. He said that he would not tell us what the unforgivable sin was that day. Instead, he would tell us during the next class, which my it is my recollection was to be taught the next week; the class in which he introduced the idea of the unforgivable sin was held on a Thursday or a Friday, so we had all weekend to think about this idea.
And I did. I really obsessed over it all weekend long. What could be the unforgivable sin?
When the time for the next class came, I was burning with curiosity to find out the answer to this question. And the priest did not disappoint. After re-introducing the question to us all, he gave the answer: the unforgivable sin is to harden your heart against the truth.
Now I have looked this up using Google, and I have found many instances of the phrase "to harden ones heart against God," or near variations of it. When I look again today, right now, I find only one instance of the "... against the truth" variety, and it is this:
The call to the reader of Hebrews is not to harden ones heart against the truth of the gospel as their ancestors had hardened their hearts in the wilderness wanderings with Moses, and so be lost.- Hebrews 3
But the priest left off the words after "truth" in the above phrase, I'm quite sure of that.
Anyway, that day, that lesson, those words, have stayed in my mind for more than fifty years, as clear as if I'd heard them only yesterday. I believe they're the truth, and I've seen a number of people who harden their hearts against the truth come to bad ends. In fact, I'd say that most of the cases I've known of where people go down a path of hopelessness and loss involve the hardening of the heart against the truth, and the indulgence of the human tendency to self-pity.
Foremost is “indifference”, ....
....”apathy is running a high pitch fever today and leaving a wake of emptiness in its path.... The Bible calls it apostasy.”
The neglect we see comes from apathy, a cold heart. Which the Scripture does predict will become ‘the norm’.
Our nation is being transformed into something it’s not..which trajectory is the goal of bringing us further away from absolute truth, not toward it.
....If God’s word is not our source to trust in for matters of life then one does not have faith but some other type of belief.
‘This is a nation that does not obey the voice of the LORD their God nor receive correction. Truth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth.” (Jer. 7:28)
And the truth of the gospel is ?
Unworthy sinners have God came, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and gave his only begotten son to BE the propitiation for our sins.
Unmerited favor, pure love.
Jesus Christ qualified us.
One can push away God’s love towards us through a harden heart.
A harden heart can come from; unmet expectations, disappointments, a harsh up bringing by which much pain and hopelessness has been seen in one’s life, being not understood or overlooked, unfulfilled prayers, broken dreams, worldliness, sin, unbelief.
The media and the persut of pleasures has a lot to do with it.
Can somebody translate this strange grammar into actual English?
One of the facets ‘of love’ is that it rejoices in hearing’ the truth’..... Today few people want to hear it and when they do they get upset if it happens to be a correction for them to change.
The truth was surely spoken by Ted Cruz today.
McTurtleneck mad Red faced Mitch was not happy after Ted Cruz got done toddy.
GOOD !
I’ll be back . . .
I’ll tell you how a heart can hardened, my friend....
Nobody can selectively build walls to protect their heart.
When you build that wall, it keeps everyone out, including God.
Forgiveness goes a long way to softening your heart.
Sin also hardens your heart to God. Every time we resist Him and His correction, we harden it a little more, just like pharaoh did.
Thanks for posting this.
It’s a very good and relevant topic and addresses what is probably a huge reason that many people don’t come to Christ.
Sure. Give the author a break for inadvertently neglecting proper grammatical expression, and the poster for correctly citing the author.
"How Does Is A Heart Hardened?"
"How Does A Heart Become Hardened?"
That the phrase was repeated in the body of the article is just a little jarring, but you can get over that and on to the meat of the issue, eh?
I think the approach must hark back to the framework of an infant's circumstances, perhaps even to it's mother's acceptance and love of this new pre-born individual.
But it also might have something to do with the accident of genetics as well. And I would think that the environment of the child's first moments, hours, and days might have a great significance.
This is a wonderful matter for discussion --
The parable of the sower gives us the 6 types of people and Ezekiel 11:20 which was not quoted in the article ( eze 11:20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them; and they shall be my people and I shall be their God) is telling because this writer misses the reason the heart needs softening.
Ezekiel in 36:26-27 and Jeremiah 31:33 tells us why a heart must be softened.
That is where His law goes in the new covenant..to walk in His ways .
And the parable of sower tells us only three types of people get in to the Kingdom- 30fold,60fold, 100 fold.
When one understands what each of those folds mean/represents, they can understand why the 30 fold would be called ‘least’ in the Kingdom.
It has to do with His Commands that are to be written on one’s fleshy,softened heart..and 30 fold havent received His law, in their ears or in their hearts.
And that study begins in Israel’s Exodus.
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