Monday, August 22,
2016
So God’s rest is there for people to
enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they
disobeyed God. So God set another time for entering his
rest, and that time is today. God
announced this through David much later in the words already quoted: “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden
your hearts.”
Hebrews 4:6-7 (NLT)
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What is the difference between a softened
heart and a hardened heart?
It’s the difference between life and death!
Physically our hearts have a
two-layered sac which covers the inner portion of our heart muscle. This is the pericardium, and it helps the
heart work and protects it as well. But this
pericardium can become inflamed and also can develop sclerosis, or
hardening. When this happens the heart’s
activity is constricted and can be fatal.
The remedy for hardening of the heart
is sometimes nothing less than operating, where the surgeon will slit the
pericardium, allowing the heart to expand and do its work. I read years ago of this procedure, and the
physician described seeing the sick heart as lethargic, gray, and nearly
lifeless. Then, with the
slightest skilled move of his scalpel, the pericardium sac opened like a
bursting rosebud, revealing a pink, pulsating heart ready to go to work.
I don’t know that any of the prophets
or apostles sat-in on open heart surgery to see such a miracle, but they were
spot-on about the spiritual condition of a hardened heart!
In today’s reading God’s Word
declares that God’s rest (or salvation) is available to anyone who will come. It also describes the all-too familiar reality
that many do not enter into that relationship because they prefer to hold onto
their sins (disobedience).
The Scripture pleads…don’t harden
your heart; in that way you shut yourself off from the very relationship your
heart wants…fellowship with your Creator.
The hard lining of a spiritual pericardium is an impenetrable shield
against every invitation God extends, because we refuse forgiveness when we
hold on to our disobedience.
There is a great sweeping movement
today of the kind of disobedience clearly named in Scripture which people prefer
to ignore, blithely (and ignorantly) stating that God has changed His mind, and
now permits whatever man prefers.
Hardening the heart against God in
the name of a soft-heart towards sin is the very image of apostasy; it is
calling evil good, and will bring judgment.
It is the pathway which seems right to many people, but ends in death of
the soul.
For You Today
Pray for those with hardened hearts; but also pray for
yourself, inviting God to do a spiritual X-Ray on your heart’s lining.
Go to VIDEO
NOTES
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