Heart Tracks - Hardened Hearts

"Remember what it says; 'Today when you hear His voice, don't harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled." Hebrews 3:15...."Are we living in rebellion, presumption, or submission?" Watchman Nee

What's the spiritual disposition of your heart? There may be no greater question asked of you or me. We may be the most active person in our church and community. We may abound in good works and generous giving. We may be doing all the "right things," yet the disposition, the attitude of our heart may be totally contrary to the heart and purpose of God. We may have all the surface qualities of a dedicated believer yet all the while maintaining a hardened, rebellious heart.

Watchman Nee asks a penetrating question. What heart attitude are we really living in? The first, rebellion, can be relatively easy to identify. We may justify, deny, or just ignore the symptoms of rebellion in our life, but in our spirit, we know when we're walking against light. We know where and how we're fighting God. Oftentimes over the course of my ministry I've heard people say in response to wrong and sinful behaviors, "The Lord has been speaking to me about that." Yet there's been no change or even an attempt to have change. They pretend to have an openness to His ministry that doesn't actually exist in them. They're fighting God and rebelling against what He seeks to do in their lives. It is one thing to be yielded to Him while He works to bring healing and wholeness, oftentimes in stages, and another to feign desire for transformation while all the while persisting in destructive habits and ways. And the heart grows harder.

A much more difficult heart attitude to come to grips with is that of presumption. There are so many things we presume about God, ourselves, and how He and we should relate, and how we both should relate to others. We presume things in prayer, in ministry, in choices and decisions. Many times this attitude of presumption comes with an attitude of entitlement. We feel we've earned or deserve what we ask for, or, that God certainly must desire the same thing we do simply because we do desire it. We call it good so He must as well. The sin of presumption ensnares us because we think we have thoughts and perceptions on par with His. We presume to know what He'll do and how He'll act. It's really just a subtle form of rebellion, and to persist in it brings about the same hardening of our hearts that open rebellion does.

There is only one pathway to maintaining a softened, teachable, and malleable heart.....that of living in the attitude of full submission to His will and way. We don't fight and resist Him and we don't presume to take on His role in our affairs. We place all of ourselves, and all the desires, dreams, hopes and plans at His feet and trust that He will do what is best and right with all of them. This will include our most precious and longed for hopes and yearnings. More than we want any of them to come to pass, we want His will for us to come to pass. A hardened heart can never do this. Only the soft, tender heart of the surrendered can.

So which heart attitude most describes you and me? We can be soft and open in many, even most areas of our spirit life.....except for that one place. That one attitude. In that place we've become hard, and with each refusal to heed His voice and leading, we become harder. Hardened toward Him and hardened to one another. We become desensitized to both. Rebellion and presumption each yield a bitter harvest. Refuge, peace, and safety are found only in surrender in and to Him. There is always one heart attitude that prevails in us. What's prevailing in you and me?

Blessings,
Pastor O