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Avoiding a Hardened Conscience (Protestant/Evangelical Devotional)
Ligonier ^ | 6/24/2019

Posted on 06/24/2019 5:32:56 AM PDT by Gamecock

We are warned not to allow ourselves to become hardened, because if we look at the whole concept of hardening in its biblical perspective, we see that something happens to us through repeated sins. Our consciences become seared. The more we commit a particular sin, the less remorse we feel from it. Our hearts are recalcitrant through repeated disobedience.

When God hardens the heart, all He does is step away and stop striving with us. For example, the first time I commit a particular sin, my conscience bothers me. In His grace, God is convicting me of that evil. God is intruding into my life, trying to persuade me to stop this wickedness. If He wants to harden me, all He has to do is to stop rebuking me, stop nudging me, and just give me enough rope to hang myself.

We see in Scripture that when God hardens hearts, He does not force people to sin; rather, He gives them their freedom to exercise the evil of their own desires (James 1:13–15).

Coram Deo

Pray this prayer with the psalmist David: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps. 139:23–24).

Passages for Further Study

James 1:13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.


TOPICS: General Discusssion
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 06/24/2019 5:32:56 AM PDT by Gamecock
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To: Alex Murphy; bkaycee; blue-duncan; boatbums; caww; CynicalBear; daniel1212; Dutchboy88; ealgeone; ..

Ping


2 posted on 06/24/2019 5:33:28 AM PDT by Gamecock (In church today, we so often find we meet only the same old world, not Christ and His Kingdom. AS)
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To: Gamecock

Too late.
The Left has been pushing too hard, too long.
I refuse to let my compassion be weaponized against me.


3 posted on 06/24/2019 5:38:49 AM PDT by Little Ray (Freedom Before Security!)
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To: Gamecock
Job 36:21 “Be careful, do not turn to evil, For you have preferred this to affliction.

It is the hardness of our hearts in that we prefer an easy path. God, in His great love, wants to perfect us. Although this may cause afflictions, it is for our benefit. We should be ever grateful that God continues to work with us through our grumbling.

4 posted on 06/24/2019 5:55:18 AM PDT by HarleyD
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To: Little Ray

Let your compassion be in your private life. Your conscience is between God and you. You have every right, indeed a duty, to protest most “government compassion.”


5 posted on 06/24/2019 6:37:01 AM PDT by erkelly
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To: erkelly

Thank you!


6 posted on 06/24/2019 6:43:45 AM PDT by Little Ray (Freedom Before Security!)
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To: HarleyD

......”We should be ever grateful that God continues to work with us through our grumbling”.......

Amen! and Amen....


7 posted on 06/24/2019 7:22:57 AM PDT by caww
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